Artists-in-Residence at the Mattress Factory
This is a collection of installations that ran at the Mattress Factory from 2018-2019, featuring five diverse and fascinating artists.
"ADA," Karina Smigla-Bobinski, 2018
Filled up with helium, floating freely in the gallery, ADA is a transparent, membrane-like globe spiked with charcoals that leaves marks on the walls, ceilings and floors. The globe is put in action by visitors, fabricated in open space, a composition of lines and points which remain incalculable in their intensity and expression.
ADA by Karina Smigla-Bobinski (2019) by Karina Smigla-BobinskiMattress Factory
However hard a visitor tries to control ADA, drive her, to domesticate her, they will soon discover that ADA is an independent viral performer, studding the originally white walls with drawings and signs. More and more complicated fabric structures arise.
ADA by Karina Smigla-Bobinski (2018) by Karina Smigla-BobnskiMattress Factory
It is a movement experienced visually, which like a computer, makes an unforeseeable output after entering a command.
"Lessons," William Earl Kofmehl, III, 2018
The work is delving into subject/object interplay. Impersonal and the personal. The gaze. Oral and Literate Culture. Storytelling through seven performative lessons delivered throughout the entirety of the exhibition. Varied forms of didacticism utilizing a linguistic approach teaching the unique, and irregular, English letter combinations.
Lessons (2018) by William Earl Kofmehl, IIIMattress Factory
This approach initiates functionally illiterate students into the arcane mysteries of the English language, opening for the reader the "Thousand Most Common English Words" as well as thousands more in associated "word families."
"The Interstitium," Laleh Mehran, 2018
The Interstitium immerses the viewer in a space both familiar and distant where Boroosh (ancient Persian for "glimmer of light") have emerged from the surfaces.
The Interstitium (2018) by Laleh MehranMattress Factory
The Boroosh are interconnected, and when they sense your presence, they yearn to make connections with you.
The Interstitium (2018) by Laleh MehranMattress Factory
Other surfaces are portals that converge and extend the search for meaning into the infinite. From the sides of the void, sparks become light, and from that energy, stories emerge.
"Lyrical," Osgemeos 2018
The gallery-spanning installation Lyrical, by OSGEMEOS—two twin brothers from São Paulo, Brazil—invites a combinatory experience of dreams, time, myth, music and motion.
Lyrical (2018) by OsgemeosMattress Factory
Through the entrance, the viewer gains access to another realm or a surreal and mystical world.
Lyrical (2018) by OsgemeosMattress Factory
This world combines influences from the artists' collection, family and their own dreams.
"Screen," Christina A. West, 2018
Screen is a multimedia installation that transforms the gallery into a theatrical setting using bold color, scale shifts and strategies that engage the viewer as both voyeur and subject.
Screen (2018) by Christina A. WestMattress Factory
Throughout the installation, various kinds of screens offer a mediated experience of the space, from literal screens on monitors that present distorted and delayed images to walls that inhibit access to interior spaces. Mirrors and monitors function like windows, but rather than give us an external view, they simply reflect the space we are occupying back to us.
Screen (2018) by Christina A. WestMattress Factory
These elements, along with sculptural figures that are intended to remind us of our own bodies, encourage a self-consciousness that highlights the prevalence of individual subjectivity in our experience of reality.
