Contributing Artists

Elena Ailes, Trevor Goosen, Leah Mackin

Exhibition Statement as Preserved in the SUGS/SITE Archives:

The exhibtion title \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/, though unpronounceable, signifies the connecting threads between the works of Elena Ailes (MFA 2015), Trevor Goosen (MFA 2015), and Leah Mackin (MFA 2015). THe back slash and forward slash characters, typically used as separators between ideas and words are reappropriated and re-contextualized as an assembled line. Elena Ailes presents two pieces centered around rope as a manufactured line. In deus ex machina, wool yarn is strung between a wall and a rope-making machine. The resulting clean lines and sleek wool-steel construction imply the aesthetics of a designed object as opposed to the travail of rope making, calling into question the value of function, design and manual labout. Untitled (abbreviation), the second of Ailes’ works, consists of a rope hauled out of a rivier and looped across the length of the gallery floor. The knotted rope, abbreviated, aesthticized and articulated, partitions the gallery with a solitary line. Installed on opposite walls of the gallery, the works of Trevor Goosen create a visual and spatial back and forth referencing the exhibtion title. Resting on platforms, his sculptures constructed with rope and milled pieces of plywood theatrically perform linearity. These platforms, each supported by bar stools or paint cans, allude tot he impermanence of set and stage design. Goosen pairs the sculptural forms with xeroxed images of commercial product photography and photography from within his studio, further emphasizing the temporality of set while also mocking himself and the sculptural forms displayed. Leah Mackin’s untitled print allows viewers to follow the image of an imprinted accordion-folded paper along the length of the gallery wall. This linear interaction with the work alludes to the act of reading. Mackin’s process of replication through scanning and reprinting functions inside the aesthetics of archival preservation and documentation. The illusion of this faux-facsimile, countered by the sleek surface of the plastic film it is printed on, questions image reproduction and authenticity. Lines divide, connect, and guide. Running together through the gallery space, the works of Ailes, Goosen and Mackin provide an intersection of converging lines and bisecting practices that ultimately come together to \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/.