HEIDI SCHWEGLER
EXTINCTION ANXIETY
February 22 – April 1, 2017
Preview reception with artist Wednesday February 22 from 5:00 – 7:00 pm
First Thursday art walk March 2 from 6:00 - 8:00pm
Artist talk/Q&A Saturday March 18 from 4:00 – 5:30 pm
THE WORK
The sculptures and photographs in Heidi Schwegler’s exhibition reverse industrial production, painstakingly recreating durable, mass-produced stuff into fragile, unique works of glass, porcelain and gold. Even when elevated to heroic new materials and placed on white walls and pedestals, the forms retain the aurae of their original surroundings and of the people who tossed them. Schwegler approaches discarded objects as investigations into overlapping ideas of mortality, consumption and coping mechanisms, often finding in them beauty and disquieting humor. By presenting transformations of consumer goods in unexpected materials, Schwegler seeks to create a new relationship between viewers and the mundane objects that she refers to as “intermediaries of human desire.”
“I am going toward violence rather than tenderness, hell rather than heaven, ugly rather than beautiful, impure rather than pure – because by doing these things they become transformed, and we become transformed.”
THE ARTIST
Heidi Schwegler (b. 1967, San Antonio, Texas) explores a wide range of materials in the service of her subject matter, deftly incorporating found objects with traditional craft and sculpture media. Schwegler is a Hallie Ford Fellow of the Ford Family Foundation, received a MacDowell Colony Fellowship and several RACC Individual Project Grants. Reviews of Schwegler’s work have been published in Art in America, ArtNews, Drain Magazine, Daily Serving and the Huffington Post, among others. She earned her MFA from the University of Oregon and lives and works in Portland, Oregon where she is Chair of the MFA in Applied Craft + Design (OCAC/PNCA). Her work was included in Portland2016: A Biennial of Contemporary Art, curated by Michelle Grabner and presented by Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, as well as Co/Lab Art Fair and Raid Projects, Platform China, Scope Art 2004, and the Hallie Ford Museum.