Impermanence & Abject Space

Name: Impermanence & Abject Space
Start: 2024-10-04T18:00:00-04:00
End: 2024-10-04T21:00:00-04:00
Location: Greenville Center for Creative Arts

Schedule

Fri Oct 04 2024 at 06:00 pm to 09:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Greenville Center for Creative Arts | Greenville, SC

Dipped in a lukewarm bath of brightly colored self-awareness, Watkins acknowledges a contemporary world enthralled with the screen just a fingertip’s length away. It’s easier not to question; instead, we deny. "
Impermanence & Abject Space" is about facing oneself. From the abject, found and discarded goods, once deemed useless, emerge. Piled, stacked, fragmented, stitched together, overturned, and slathered in layers of paint. Examining the human experience through a laborious analytic process, driven by anxiety-fueled curiosity, Watkins scrutinizes the material world.
For the first time in one space, abstract paintings are placed alongside mixed-media “remnant works” that blur the lines between painting and sculpture. Hand-stitched fibers manipulated within the traditional, wall-bound paintings, continue to evolve. New remnant works use an expanded list of deconstructed domestic materials mined from past temporary installations---as each installation moves from the living present into memory, its physical form returns to waste.
Teetering back and forth between deconstruction and rebuilding, Watkins’ process underscores alleged binaries such as life—death, rich—poor, and happy—sad. These contradictions challenge viewers to consider the who, what, where, and why of art/life with relation to institutional hierarchies. This exhibition highlights the function of art in contemporary society, urging viewers to consider widely accepted value systems that drive a product-based life.