Opening Reception: First Friday, September 3rd from 5pm to 8pm.
Katherine’s artist talk will be recorded and accessible online through the RVAS website and social media pages after First Friday.
Exhibit run: September 3rd - October 21st , 2021, Craddock-Terry Gallery at Riverviews Artspace.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Souvenirs from the Anthropocene are, as I imagine them, objects that have lived on and have been found after humankind has passed on. The Anthropocene refers to the geologic age that we are currently in, the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on the climate and the environment. Resurrecting and uncovering objects from times past fascinates me. This is what souvenirs were made for, to carry memory across time and place. Their survival elicits so many questions, for those curious enough to enquire. I imagine these objects being uncovered thousands of years from now. What do these objects say about the people who created them? What inherent contradictions do they hold?
The imagery in my work is based on actual objects -- Victorian taxidermied furniture, handmade pillowcases, artificial grottoes, and old valentines. They belong to the material culture of sentiment which, as an artist, I reclaim to narrate my sorrow and anxiety about catastrophic environmental degradation.
I use the language of kitsch, that is the feminized language of sentiment and nostalgia, to highlight the disconnect in the way we relate to and interact with the natural world. Kitsch as a language is inherently melodramatic and has been a part of our material culture for hundreds of years. It has been dismissed by art historians and intellectuals as vapid and lacking in substance. No doubt this dismissal is in part due to the fact that kitsch expression has often been the domain of women, whose collections of kitschy adornments occupy many homes, in altars and on mantles. However, to dismiss kitsch entirely is to disregard its function as it relates to memory, to meaning-making and to culture itself. As a personal form of expression, I find in kitsch the ability to wax poetic about that which I cannot fully express in words alone. It is a form of remembrance, a spiritual practice that is historically embedded in the industrial revolution, capitalism and our very removal from nature itself.
Just reading the news this past week, specifically the fallout from Hurricane Ida in New Orleans, I am struck at the hubris of humankind. Much of the conversation about New Orleans relates to Katrina and the multi-million dollar infrastructure plan-- the levees-- that were rebuilt in her wake. Were they strong enough to protect the city of New Orleans, its people and its culture? I am struck by both the human ingenuity-- the spectacular problem solving-- but also the futility of trying to engineer our way out of the impending climate crisis. My work starts at the intersection of sentiment and futility in the face of such ecological devastation.
ARTIST BIO
Katherine Burling is an artist based in Charlottesville, Virginia. Her practice incorporates a love of material culture and collected objects. She is inspired by feelings of loss and chaos, oftentimes personal as well as social, ecological, and political. Her work draws from images and objects that carry a sweet, old-world nostalgia, employed as a metaphor for that which is lost, threatened and woefully cherished. Burling holds an MFA from James Madison University.
www.katherineburling.com | Instagram: @katherineburling
ARTIST TALK
EXHIBIT CATALOG
IF INTERESTED IN PURCHASING ANY OF THE PIECES IN THIS EXHIBIT, CONTACT MICHELE BOLEN (GALLERY ASSOCIATE) AT MICHELE@RIVERVIEWS.NET
