Awkward, an exhibition of work by Liz Rodda and Kathleen McShane, will be on display at Arts + Literature Laboratory from Friday, January 13 to Saturday, March 4, 2023. A closing reception will be held Saturday, February 25 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm.
Liz Rodda and Kathleen McShane question and nudge forms through material processes. Each generates forms from reconfigured vocabularies in which narratives appear constructed, buried and uncovered in a struggle, and left to stand in an ambivalent state. Rodda’s projects involve reconfiguring innocuous materials such as kitty litter, hair dye, and found YouTube videos to consider forces surrounding the contemporary body. McShane’s drawings, paintings and painted objects often act together in odd configurations which might include corner and floor pieces; the gallery often becomes a tableau of small ceramic, abject grid-forms; irregular-shaped frames; furniture-like forms, and paintings and drawings containing distant, abstracted landscapes.
Awkward operates as a laboratory of awkwardness. The exhibition is designed to alternate between a rhythm of the moving and the static--between Rodda’s videos and McShane’s book pile “pedestals” with abject ceramic grids. Collaborative works include a loose grid of Rodda and McShane drawings attach to a leaning sheet of plywood, united by their shared color scheme of pink, violet, gray and olive green. Collectively, Awkward operates as a loose constellation of the familiar and unfamiliar, forming vignettes that liberate objects and images from familiar conventions—instead embracing awkwardness.
