Melissa Stern: The Talking Cure / Fetherston Gallery, Seattle, USA
March 9 – April 7, 2012
Artist Reception: Thursday, March 29, 5.00 – 8.00 pm
The Fetherston Gallery is proud to present “The Talking Cure” exhibition, by New York artist Melissa Stern, a groundbreaking interactive art exhibition integrating sculpture, contemporary literature, online audio and Smartphone technology.
Smartphone Meets Sculpture
“The Talking Cure” exhibition consists of ten of Stern’s sculptures each accompanied by an interactive audio track created by one of ten literary collaborators. Stern’s sculptures, fabricated figures combining mixed materials and found objects, with deeply drawn surfaces, possess an abundance of personality. Stern has collaborated with ten contemporary writers – poets, novelist, screenwriters, and playwrights – to each choose a sculpture and write his or her monologue of the goings on in the sculpture’s mind. The monologues are transformed into audio recordings, stored “in the cloud,” and triggered via a QR tag imbedded in the sculpture. When the viewer points a Smartphone, Blackberry or I-Phone at the QR tag it will trigger audio to hear the inner voice of the sculpture.
Interactive Multimedia in the Manner of Sigmund Freud
The viewer will also have the opportunity to record his or her own imagined monologue for the sculpture. These recording will be available for playback, creating an added interactive dimension to the work. Viewers will be creators as well as receivers of the back-story for each sculpture; the exhibition takes its title from Sigmund Freud’s original name for the practice of psychoanalysis.
Melissa Stern has worked in both sculpture and drawings for over twenty years, living and exhibiting in California, Europe, and New York City. Her work is featured in a number of prominent corporate and museum collections including Dow Jones, JP Morgan, The Arkansas Art Center and the Kohler Corporation, where she was an artist-in-residence. She has also had residences at the Serenbe Institute outside of Atlanta Ga. and at The Washington School of Glass in Washington DC. Her artwork was has been featured in Trans- Ceramic Art, 500 Figures in Clay, and American Illustration 26 – The Best American Illustrations of 2007.
With a background in anthropology, Melissa’s work reflects both non-Western and outsider art influences. Her drawings, collages, and figurative sculptures are characterized by their richly drawn and deeply layered surfaces, as well their quirky, often dark humor.
“I work like a handyman cobbling together drawings and sculptures from elements found, borrowed, and imagined. I use a wide range of materials from encaustic to clay, pastel to steel. The drawings and sculptures, often made in tandem, resonate with one another, the ideas in one reinforcing the themes of the other.
All of my pieces share a thematic thread. Childlike and goofy my figures live in a dream world, cower in relationships or stand tall in the face of adversity. They are at once dark and funny, expressive of the absurd world around them.”
Gallery Hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 11am – 5.30pm, and by appointment.
CONTACT
Betsy Fetherston
Tel. 206-322-9440
fgal@ballardfetherstongallery.com
Fetherston Gallery
818 E. Pike Street,
Seattle, WA 98122
United States
www.fetherstongallery.com
Above: Melissa Stern, STAINLESS, 2012, mixed materials, audio.
