Show #32: ICICLES IN CAVES at Field Projects

Field Projects is pleased to present Show #32: ICICLES IN CAVES, a two person exhibition featuring the work of Erika Lynne Hanson and Rachel Schmidhofer. As a contemporary continuum to classic art historical genres such as Landscape Painting and Still Life Painting, Hanson and Schmidhofer contemplate what we have done and are doing to our environment, what the environment in turn does to us, how we naturalize what we do to each other, and how these “doings” are enacted in the media of representation during our lifetime.

Rachel Schmidhofer lives in New York City and makes still life oil paintings of aquariums, house plants, mineral collections, Plexiglas display cases and goldfish in bags. Through this domesticated collection we can trace the shadow of the wild from its hidden caves, ancient grottoes and mysterious fauna to our living room decor. What saves these works from simply documenting capitalist tokens of imperialism is Schmidhofer’s own sense of wonder and love for these objects and animals. At once vibrantly joyous and admittedly sad, the subjects’ aura not only becomes visible but begins to erase the physical bodies rendered, transporting us back to the original awe under which they were first discovered.