Exhibit Opening & Reception: inhales without exhales

Lucas Cook

Lucas Cook’s sculptures are assembled from litter sourced from Buffalo Lakeside Commerce Park. If you’ve never been, it is a bizarre park centered around the Union Ship Canal at the bottom of Buffalo’s outer harbor.  Seldom visited, It is Defined by the physical remnants of previous industry and manicured like a pedantic golf course.  It’s an afterthought of a park, prone to litter, but still managing an awkward charm.  Since 2019, Cook has been leading Garbage Tours of the park, in which visitors “can choose to collect and respond to/with the garbage that most compels them.”  The works in this exhibition are the result of Cook’s own responses to garbage scavenged at the park.   Assembled intuitively, they are not so much a record of any particular scavenge as they are an impression of both the park and of Cook’s attention.   

Erin Kearney’s work finds connections between the construction and craft processes that give structure to the home.  Her sculptures often involve unlikely combinations like drywall and woven rope, construction foam and fabric, woven asphalt shingles.  The domestic craft and the construction materials shift in their relationship from one work to the next.  One sculpture of a patch of fabric held upright by hardened foam seems to suggest a craft reliant on the construction material for its posture.  Another work, a heap of crumbling drywall kept together by rope woven into it while it was still whole, shows the domestic craft assuming the support role. The melding of the two disciplines undermines the lingering feminine association with domestic crafts and the supposed masculinity of construction.  And Kearney’s open mind to what constitutes finish and her casual acceptance of fragility makes for endearingly precarious work.  A piece may change from one exhibition to the next, as our relationship to home does over time.

Joel Mulindwa

While much of Joel Mulindwa’s work is figurative, he’s been developing a series of works that adopt the common tip jar as their subject matter.  Happened upon as a chance detail in a photo he took of a local artist working the counter at a book store, Mulindwa gathered images of tip jars while working as a delivery driver.  In contrast to Mulindwa’s previous home of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the tip jar is somewhat unique to American commerce and culture.  He describes them as a byproduct of a faulty system of compensation, a call for help, and yet a symbol of strength in their own way.  The title for this exhibition is a translation of his description of tip jars as “rest not realized”, inhales without exhales, the tips making up for being overworked and underpaid.  He tells an anecdote of his mother, a long time hotel worker, receiving a tip of flowers from a cash-strapped customer, suggesting that perhaps this is a more thoughtful form of gratuity.  The various images of jars and their point-of-sale surrounds are rendered in deeply saturated pastels, adding a language of attention and playfulness to the commonplace scenes.