MATTER SHIFTING SHAPE
Shane Darwent + Elspeth Schulze, 2024
"Our family trio, and our trio of exchanges has me thinking about the sturdy unit of three. The triangle leading to the pyramid, the rule of thirds in painting or picture making, the compositional balance of threes in any image making attempts. Elspeth and I were both one of three siblings - always an alliance to be formed or a person to cut the tension or one to spike the mix."
- Shane Darwent
"This installation makes me think about the angle of repose - something I learned about for the first time in graduate school. I was working with piles of sand and gravel, poured into cone shapes onto the floor, spilling through circular cages of concrete mesh. I was thrilled to learn that materials reach a consistent angle of rest - with dry sand, the side of the cone was 30 degrees. In the same way that the rules of algebra pleased me in high school, this material behavior in the real world did the same. It felt like a rule that I knew with my body, before I knew it with words. The best moments of making still feel this way."
- Elspeth Schulze
A Tale of Repose
As we view a grain of sand get dropped from some distance above it lands with a sudden ripple that sends it traveling towards a path ahead of itself. At this moment it is alone and only understands the direction it came from, somewhere, some place from above. Not sure of where to go, this grain of sand slightly wanders with thoughts and feelings of various emptiness. Some thunder occurs and yet not a drop of rain, instead one more grain of sand slowly freefalls, landing not with a thud, but with a bounce and a tumble that reverberates towards and against the first. With two grains of sand there is now distance between the two along this horizontal plane. One grain looks over its shoulder and sees the other as a far cry away, one movement to the left another towards the right, no distance gained and no distance lost. Just two grains in polar opposite of each other, one pushes as the other pulls, one moves forward while the other moves against.
a tug of war
no sense of direction
a line is formed
A cloud suddenly approaches and finds itself directly above and in-between these two grains. A breeze, a ripple, some lighting without thunder, and one more grain falls from the sky as the two below form a diameter along the horizontal plane. Before the center grain can tumble to the ground the outer two move together in a circular motion as they propel the center grain to simply hover above. While they gain momentum, the center grain rises and at the moment their gaze becomes fixed, they remember the horizontal plane they both share and pause for a moment to look straight ahead and find one another in perfect alignment. An alignment that becomes quite brief as the grain above begins to fall and once again, they move in a circular fashion, lifting their center grain together while fixating towards their angle above.
Shane Darwent + Elspeth Schulze, 2024
"Our family trio, and our trio of exchanges has me thinking about the sturdy unit of three. The triangle leading to the pyramid, the rule of thirds in painting or picture making, the compositional balance of threes in any image making attempts. Elspeth and I were both one of three siblings - always an alliance to be formed or a person to cut the tension or one to spike the mix."
- Shane Darwent
"This installation makes me think about the angle of repose - something I learned about for the first time in graduate school. I was working with piles of sand and gravel, poured into cone shapes onto the floor, spilling through circular cages of concrete mesh. I was thrilled to learn that materials reach a consistent angle of rest - with dry sand, the side of the cone was 30 degrees. In the same way that the rules of algebra pleased me in high school, this material behavior in the real world did the same. It felt like a rule that I knew with my body, before I knew it with words. The best moments of making still feel this way."
- Elspeth Schulze
A Tale of Repose
As we view a grain of sand get dropped from some distance above it lands with a sudden ripple that sends it traveling towards a path ahead of itself. At this moment it is alone and only understands the direction it came from, somewhere, some place from above. Not sure of where to go, this grain of sand slightly wanders with thoughts and feelings of various emptiness. Some thunder occurs and yet not a drop of rain, instead one more grain of sand slowly freefalls, landing not with a thud, but with a bounce and a tumble that reverberates towards and against the first. With two grains of sand there is now distance between the two along this horizontal plane. One grain looks over its shoulder and sees the other as a far cry away, one movement to the left another towards the right, no distance gained and no distance lost. Just two grains in polar opposite of each other, one pushes as the other pulls, one moves forward while the other moves against.
a tug of war
no sense of direction
a line is formed
A cloud suddenly approaches and finds itself directly above and in-between these two grains. A breeze, a ripple, some lighting without thunder, and one more grain falls from the sky as the two below form a diameter along the horizontal plane. Before the center grain can tumble to the ground the outer two move together in a circular motion as they propel the center grain to simply hover above. While they gain momentum, the center grain rises and at the moment their gaze becomes fixed, they remember the horizontal plane they both share and pause for a moment to look straight ahead and find one another in perfect alignment. An alignment that becomes quite brief as the grain above begins to fall and once again, they move in a circular fashion, lifting their center grain together while fixating towards their angle above.
Photos Courtesy of Shane Darwent & Elspeth Schulze
Video Courtesy of Elspeth Schulze
Photos Courtesy of Dan Schwalm
Email conversations with Shane Darwent and Elspeth Schulze regarding this exhibition:
About the Artists:
Shane Darwent is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice mines the commercial vernacular that lines American roadways to inform experimental photographic works, large-scale sculpture, and site-responsive installations. Within a landscape designed to overwhelm, Darwent’s practice seeks out a redacted formalism in order to meditate on the transitional nature of these spaces and the shape-shifting economic constructs of which they are a part. Exhibiting internationally, Darwent has been an artist-in-residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Ragdale, the Ucross Foundation and the Jentel Artist Residency Program, as well as a Core Fellow at Penland School of Crafts. He holds an MFA from the University of Michigan (2017) and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (2005). He is a 2022 Joan Mitchell Fellow and is an Alumni Artist-in-Residence at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship in Tulsa, Oklahoma where he has maintained a studio since 2018.
www.shanedarwent.com
Elspeth Schulze is a visual artist from Southern Louisiana, a place where land and water meet. She sews, casts and cuts forms, combining digital fabrication with ceramic and textile processes. Recent work explores the idea of a porous place, a passage between one thing and another. Schulze holds an MFA in Ceramics from the University of Colorado Boulder, a BA in Literature from Loyola University New Orleans, and an AAS in Fashion Design from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. She is currently an alumni artist in residence at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
www.elspethschulze.com
Shane Darwent is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice mines the commercial vernacular that lines American roadways to inform experimental photographic works, large-scale sculpture, and site-responsive installations. Within a landscape designed to overwhelm, Darwent’s practice seeks out a redacted formalism in order to meditate on the transitional nature of these spaces and the shape-shifting economic constructs of which they are a part. Exhibiting internationally, Darwent has been an artist-in-residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Ragdale, the Ucross Foundation and the Jentel Artist Residency Program, as well as a Core Fellow at Penland School of Crafts. He holds an MFA from the University of Michigan (2017) and a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (2005). He is a 2022 Joan Mitchell Fellow and is an Alumni Artist-in-Residence at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship in Tulsa, Oklahoma where he has maintained a studio since 2018.
www.shanedarwent.com
Elspeth Schulze is a visual artist from Southern Louisiana, a place where land and water meet. She sews, casts and cuts forms, combining digital fabrication with ceramic and textile processes. Recent work explores the idea of a porous place, a passage between one thing and another. Schulze holds an MFA in Ceramics from the University of Colorado Boulder, a BA in Literature from Loyola University New Orleans, and an AAS in Fashion Design from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. She is currently an alumni artist in residence at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
www.elspethschulze.com