Tunnels | Hallie Off - I am forgetting, for gathering (tureen for venus)

 Artist Bio

Hallie Off (b.1990, Sacramento, CA). Off’s practice centers around using clay in sculpture, performance, image, and video work to create a contemporary queer dream(hope)scape that touches on how the history of an object’s use creates culture by shaping how we perceive ourselves and our environments. They are an artist, writer, and educator whose practice has been shaped by authors of Science Fiction, Poetry, and Social Theory as well the artists who call Ox-Bow School of Art in Saugatuck, MI home. Their work offers avenues of insight into healing from abusive western labor practices and the harsh realities these practices have created. They’re current work weaves ceramic sculpture and astronomical time as a way to usher in the return of slow geo-based practices. They live and work out of their home studio in Nicasio, CA and have shown work in Chicago, Detroit, and Minneapolis, MN.

Statement

Ideas of tunneling have long been a part of Hallie Elodie’s sculptural forms. From 2018 - Present the artist has worked with various media including video, performance, clay, and sculpture to highlight the ways in which seemingly solid structures are in fact permeable membranes. The works in this show use tunnels iconographically and literally to highlight the ways in which the act of “passing through” offers us a space for healing, resistance, contemplation, and slowness. Ultimately these sculptures act as honing devices to orient the body back to itself. This act, to reorient back to the self, to a lover, or to narratives outside of capitalism and socially constructed borders happen in the tunnel; in spaces between what is known and unknown. These works are used to brew foraged teas, burn ritual incense, share meals with lovers, and above all offer space for connection - to ourselves and a world outside of abusive labor practices.

Hallie states, “Ritual object making is something I take very seriously. I wholeheartedly see this as a practice of revealing and unlearning colonial conditioning in a way that calls us to question what it means to be humans in society today. It asks us to look at our connection to the divine presence of the known and unknown which shapes our perception of the world and our place in it.”

https://hallieschatroom.squarespace.com

@hallieschatroom