Landscape Sculpture
click on image for full view
January
7 – February 18, 2006
ARTIST RECEPTION Saturday,
January 7, 5 – 8 pm
d.en. contemporary art is pleased to present Landscape
Sculpture, an exhibition of new work by Kristi Lippire,
opening January 7, 2006. Using a variety of media, Lippire simplifies
and exaggerates familiar, commonplace objects into humorous yet edgy
forms of complex construction, isolating and elevating certain urban
experiences and phenomena to that of an aesthetic experience. Objects
seen within one’s peripheral view become unexpectedly surreal
upon closer inspection.
The exhibition will include four main works. In Altar to the Artist,
Lippire shears down the original form of the colorful sugar paste animals
known as “alfeñiques,” ubiquitous during Mexico’s
“Day of the Dead” celebrations, and introduces iconography
personal to her life in Los Angeles. Lippire’s animals are colorless,
without glitter, and lack eyes and mouths, allowing us to contemplate
each animal form as a sculptural tabula rasa, and inviting the viewer
to graft their own meaning onto it.
Hanging Garden began as a chandelier decorated with metal roses. Eventually, Lippire melded the mythical concept of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon with leaves, stems, and petals found in her own garden. Using traditional plumbing materials of copper and solder to create the plants in intricate detail, the result is an elaborate, obsessive object that is as grandiose and wondrous as its historical predecessor.
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With the 8-foot tall Fumigated Sculpture, Lippire locates the
middle ground between objects wrapped by artists Christo and
Jeanne-Claude, and buildings tented by pest exterminators, as
she wraps a quasi-architectural form in the menacing striped
vinyl used to confine the exterminator’s toxic gas. |
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Whether it is the folk art aesthetic of alfeñiques from Latin
America, or the sight of a man whose identity has been obscured by a
large teddy bear he carries down the street, it is such random encounters
with familiar subjects, that through the art making process Lippire
deliberately transforms them into something mysterious.
Born in Hawaii, Lippire now lives and works in Los Angeles. She graduated
Cum Laude from Cal State University, Long Beach with a B.F.A., and received
her M.F.A from Claremont Graduate University in 2002. Landscape Sculpture
is Lippire’s first exhibition with d.e.n. contemporary art, and
will be on view until February 18th.
The artist reception is Saturday, January 7, from 5 to 8 p.m. The gallery
is located at 6023 Washington Blvd., Culver City. Gallery hours are
Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 to 5:30.
For additional information and visual material,
please contact the gallery at (310) 559-3023 or info@dencontemporaryart.com
©2006