Intimate Objects of Suspect Utility
May 18 - July 8, 2023
Book launch & signing Thursday, June 15th, 6:00pm
About the Show
Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous. ~ Bill Moyers
Through its brilliant, often whimsical, re-imaginings of objects familiar and mundane, Lissa Hunter’s solo exhibition, Intimate Objects of Suspect Utility, both dazzles and delights. This brand new body of work exemplifies the keen perception, imaginative verve, and borderline alchemical transmutation of materials for which the masterful Portland-based artist is known and revered.
Like its maker, Intimate Objects is both witty and wise. One is immediately struck by the charm and freshness of Hunter’s take, and then by the way her work connects the dots and blurs the boundaries between what is and what could be. This work, situated in the space where “ordinary” and “extraordinary’ meet, invites the viewer to emulate the artist: in her attunement to the myriad connections between all things; in her intellectual curiosity and abiding sense of wonder in encountering the world around us; and in her “outside the box” imagination and openness to possibility.
In conjunction with this exhibition and under the same title, Brynmorgen Press will be publishing a book about Hunter. It features Portland and Boston-based photographer Michael Wilson’s sumptuous images of Hunter’s work and studio practice, as well as text contributed by Lissa, Portland Press Herald critic, Jorge Arango, and Cove’s Co-Owner, Co-Director, Kelley Lehr. This publication will be available in our bookstore from the opening on, but be sure to join us for an artist meet-and-greet and book signing at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 15th!
It all started with spoons. Is there a more ubiquitous technology than this modest object for providing nourishment? Even a cupped hand calls to mind a spoon, the bowl of the hand attached to the handle of the forearm, delivering cool water to a thirsty mouth.
When an idea settles in, it becomes the lens through which the world is encountered. A curled, dry leaf on a twig becomes a spoon. An upturned peanut butter jar lid serendipitously juxtaposed to a knife on the kitchen counter becomes a visual suggestion of a spoon. The dried pod still attached to its stem, having opened to deliver its payload of seeds in the wind, recalls a spoon.
But what about cups? Boxes? Books? Brushes? All exude the intimacy of use, necessity, function. All have been created by humans to solve problems and have gone far beyond their initial uses to play a role in productivity, communication and ritual.
In Intimate Objects of Suspect Utility, objects are relieved of their functional responsibilities and serve merely to remind us of their roles in all of our lives. They exist solely to evoke our common humanity.
~ Lissa Hunter
Preview the Exhibition
(CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE; CURSOR OVER ENLARGED IMAGE FOR DETAILS)
