Critic’s Pick:
Los-Angeles based artist Sharon Lockhart is taking over both Jan Mot and Gladstone Galleries with a series of photographic and sculptural works. Born out of ideas around female empowerment, the exhibition is based upon a display of bronze sculptures cast from black walnut sticks collected from years of visits to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. For A Bundle and Five Variations (2018), a collaboration with Ravi GuneWardena from the Sogetsu School of Ikebana, the sticks appear balanced in varying arrangements. The sticks are also presented as nine photographic portraits, in addition to pictures which feature a female protagonist performing choreographed poses with each of the bronze sticks that reference stances influenced by art and historical sources. Nature, labour, and agency are themes that are present throughout Lockhart’s practice which hones in on social subjects and communities that she has followed over long periods of time: from teenage girls living at the Youth Center for Socio-Therapy in the Polish village of Rudzienko to factory workers in Maine. Building on existing work that prizes architectural construction, extensive research and locality, in this show, Lockhart is able to formulate layered narratives that gives weight to both communal histories and individuals, using her established composite of choreography, portraiture and quasi-formulaic arrangement to supply viewers with stories from uncharted spaces and environments.
- Kadish Morris
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