Vanessa Thill
Bivouac (Dew Curtain), 2020
Silver thread, beads
36 × 47 × 1 1/2 inches
$3,000
Vanessa Thill is an artist, writer, organizer, and former beekeeper. She lives and works in her place of birth, the lands of the Muwekma Ohlone, Miwok, and Lisjan, also known as the East Bay of San Francisco. Most of her professional life has been supported by Lenapehoking, meaning it has mostly taken place in New York City. She has exhibited in solo and two-person presentations at Deli Gallery in Brooklyn, Camayuhs in Atlanta, GA, and Larrie NYC, among others. Her first book of poetry, Balsam, was published by Pacific Press in summer 2020. She has been included in group exhibitions in the US and Europe, including at at the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, the Contemporary Jewish Museum, JTT Gallery (NYC), Helena Anrather (NYC), Nicelle Beauchene (NYC), No Place Gallery (Columbus, OH), Public Support (Vestfossen, Norway), Golestani (Düsseldorf, Germany), Alte Fabrik Museum (Rapperswil-Jona, Switzerland), among others. Some of her favorite art experiences happened at a bus stop.
Statement:
Vanessa Thill’s practice explores the ways that non-human systems animate our material and spiritual surroundings, implicating us all as perpetual collaborators with unknown forces. Her work highlights value-laden dynamics of contamination, shelter, and frustrated desire for transcendence. Thill makes her work within a Jewish mystical framework. She is interested in seeking forms of divinity not grounded in domination.
In Bivouac (Dew Curtain), the hanging crescent form refers to a bivouac, a temporary hanging shelter for humans, and the name given to the temporary resting place of a swarm of bees. This knotted piece can be seen as a ‘picture’ of a population, where a network is registering through nodes and connecting lines. What coordinates will we orient to, what rocks will we carry, which strands of attachment will be broken? For one thing… Dew returns every morning. A remnant of the night’s refreshment, rising in triumphant miniscule.
