黑料不打烊

Spencer Brownstone Gallery is pleased to present The Molting, Shane Darwent鈥檚 third solo exhibition with the gallery. This new body of work continues Darwent鈥檚 exploration of storefront awnings as specific forms and as symbols of the evolving American urban landscape. A layer of sound, in collaboration with sound artist Robbie Wing, creates an auditory counterpart to the visual dialogue鈥攁n evolving soundscape that further immerses viewers in the theme of urban transformation.

We look for signs along the road, not road signs, or signs from God but signs of the micro economies we are slicing through. In a single sweeping view we are confronted with the new business coming soon, the old one that once was, the one that continues to cling on, the one that has taken over the old and made it new again. Collecting on the sides the things washed up, from the ever churning combinations of humanity.

The exhibition starts closed. A large mounted photograph blocks the line of sight into the gallery, standing a few feet from its narrow entrance. A bollard stands in front of a red wall and a window covered with butcher paper. Past the visual obstruction, the space opens up to a number of surfaces stretched onto shiny frames.

For the Molting, Darwent returns to discarded awning vinyl from familiar storefronts such as auto body shops, nail salons, and the Family Dollar store, reassembling them over newly fabricated aluminum armatures. Cropped, illegible store logos鈥攐nce in signage鈥攂ecome graphic fields, language reduced to shape and color. Some awnings feature fresh vinyl in combination with the used and sunfaded, resulting in a visual oscillation between real and pictorial space. The surface is the thing, and vice versa. The collection of works are remnants, multifaceted, brilliant, and brittle鈥攍eft behind the moment of metamorphosis.

Darwent鈥檚 structures, some front and back, some inside and outside鈥攅cho the transient nature of the spaces they reference. They operate as chrysali, signaling the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. As sign-making signals its own transformation, the works invite reflection on how physical and economic landscapes continually shift, leaving behind traces鈥攙isual, material, and emotional鈥攖hat speak to resilience, obsolescence, and renewal.