ARTISTS
Plum Cloutman: A Wanting Thing
It is in absence or imagination that desire takes place and it is absence and imagination that desire creates. The thing wanted is not there, or not quite within reach; instead an imagined yet viscerally experienced hole or lack takes shape. 鈥淲hen I desire you a part of me is gone,鈥� as Anne Carson wrote.
In her solo exhibition, A Wanting Thing, Plum Cloutman explores the proximity and mutual reliance of the desirer and desiree in contexts of love and greed. In each of the works the object of desire and the desiring subject are but barely touching. By visually minimizing the distance between both, the ache for the other (thing) is heightened, their broken connection emphasized.
In the triptych and titlework of the exhibition, 鈥淎 Wanting Thing,鈥� small isolated fragments in thick, soft oil hues鈥撯�揹epicting a cat and a fish, a child and fire, hands and a torso鈥撯�揳re placed in pairs on one paper, separated by just few centimeters of white space between them. Each fragment could be part of a larger domestic scene but instead stands on its own with only their significant other. The small size of these three works and isolated, almost cliche imagery dramatize the notion of desire into a symbol-like status, announcing the theme of this body of work.
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It is in absence or imagination that desire takes place and it is absence and imagination that desire creates. The thing wanted is not there, or not quite within reach; instead an imagined yet viscerally experienced hole or lack takes shape. 鈥淲hen I desire you a part of me is gone,鈥� as Anne Carson wrote.
In her solo exhibition, A Wanting Thing, Plum Cloutman explores the proximity and mutual reliance of the desirer and desiree in contexts of love and greed. In each of the works the object of desire and the desiring subject are but barely touching. By visually minimizing the distance between both, the ache for the other (thing) is heightened, their broken connection emphasized.
In the triptych and titlework of the exhibition, 鈥淎 Wanting Thing,鈥� small isolated fragments in thick, soft oil hues鈥撯�揹epicting a cat and a fish, a child and fire, hands and a torso鈥撯�揳re placed in pairs on one paper, separated by just few centimeters of white space between them. Each fragment could be part of a larger domestic scene but instead stands on its own with only their significant other. The small size of these three works and isolated, almost cliche imagery dramatize the notion of desire into a symbol-like status, announcing the theme of this body of work.
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