Fissures in the Frame
Marion Fink, Lillian Bayley Hoover, and Teresa Shields
Although technology has increased the ease and availability of interaction, human connection has arguably become more difficult. Our daily lives have become reliant on those systems that enable, and even promote, us to interact. Modes of interchange have become more mediated; physical spaces and resources are afforded to those with access, while digital realms are accessible, but commandeer attention away to fabricated unrealities. The undercurrents of which reveal cracks; and fractured existences due to disconnect. Marion Fink, Lillian Bayley Hoover, and Teresa Shields probe these fissures, unveiling their nuance and paradox.
Marion Fink creates layered, large-scale monotype portraits that are rich with narrative elements in surrealistic settings. Raised in the early years of the digital age, Fink’s portraits allude to moments of fragmented realities; the paradox of actual, lived experiences conflated with their existence through the internet. Figures are isolated within fabricated spaces, revealing the parallels between emotion and circumstance. Fink beautifully captures these moments through competing perspectives and complex feelings.
Lillian Bayley Hoover paints landscapes that reveal features realistically while omitting others. These visual fissures that bar the viewer from accessing the remaining painting reflect the perceived separation between nature and the “human world”; one that frequently feels disconnected even though we are all of one world. Hoover investigates how nature is a witness to human life; the designed spaces that shape our world, but also those that we have inherited and how nature acts as a historical record of us.
Multimedia artist, Teresa Shields, presents an interactive installation consisting of 140 individual wooden panels that represent the maximum characters of a post on X (formerly a Tweet on Twitter) and are meant to be moved to form a message. Shields explores our relationship with language; the contradiction between the immediacy of a digital post versus that of a physically crafted message. The activity is simple but offers the opportunity to slow down, collaborate with others, and make new meanings entirely.