Studio Notes - Special Edition - May 2023
Intimate Objects of Suspect Utility
May 18 - July 8, 2023
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 18, 5 - 7pm
Book Launch & Signing: Thursday, June 15, 6pm
@ Cove Street Arts
Through its brilliant, often whimsical, re-imaginings of objects familiar and mundane, Lissa Hunter’s solo exhibition, Intimate Objects of Suspect Utility, both dazzles and delights. This brand new body of work exemplifies the keen perception, imaginative verve, and borderline alchemical transmutation of materials for which the masterful Portland-based artist is known and revered.
It all started with spoons. Is there a more ubiquitous technology than this modest object for providing nourishment? Even a cupped hand calls to mind a spoon, the bowl of the hand attached to the handle of the forearm, delivering cool water to a thirsty mouth.
When an idea settles in, it becomes the lens through which the world is encountered. A curled, dry leaf on a twig becomes a spoon. An upturned peanut butter jar lid serendipitously juxtaposed to a knife on the kitchen counter becomes a visual suggestion of a spoon. The dried pod still attached to its stem, having opened to deliver its payload of seeds in the wind, recalls a spoon.
But what about cups? Boxes? Books? Brushes? All exude the intimacy of use, necessity, function. All have been created by humans to solve problems and have gone far beyond their initial uses to play a role in productivity, communication and ritual.
In Intimate Objects of Suspect Utility, objects are relieved of their functional responsibilities and serve merely to remind us of their roles in all of our lives. They exist solely to evoke our common humanity.
~ Lissa Hunter
In conjunction with this exhibition and under the same title, Brynmorgen Press is publishing a book about Hunter. It features Portland and Boston-based photographer Michael Wilson’s sumptuous images of Hunter’s work and studio practice, as well as text contributed by Lissa, Portland Press Herald critic, Jorge Arango, and Cove’s Co-Owner, Co-Director, Kelley Lehr.
This publication will be available in our bookstore from the opening on, but be sure to join us for an artist meet-and-greet and book signing at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 15th!