Posts Tagged ‘Jesseca Ferguson’

Paper Prayers/In the Spirit

Thursday, December 19th, 1991

Many of the artists here are of a gen­er­a­tion who reject­ed the con­ven­tion­al com­forts of orga­nized reli­gion — and now they find them­selves fac­ing the inevitable mys­tery of death alone. They are re-invent­ing rit­u­als that feel authen­tic to them and find­ing new ways to sat­is­fy their spir­i­tu­al needs. Paper Prayers has become one such con­tem­po­rary heal­ing rit­u­al — a small con­gre­ga­tion of artists gath­ered togeth­er In the Spirit.

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The Future of Art

Friday, March 1st, 1991

It is art that acknowl­edges the strug­gle of its own mak­ing, and con­veys a sense of life as com­posed of frag­ments, where not every­thing is leg­i­ble, and some things are irrev­o­ca­bly ruined or lost. The past haunts and enrich­es the present. Mem­o­ry and imag­i­na­tion are inter­twined. It is a mir­ror of the soul.

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Ruins at the Rose

Friday, December 8th, 1989

The 80’s began with big, shiny, self-con­fi­dent paint­ings, but they are end­ing with of shreds and tat­ters, and anx­ious pre­mo­ni­tions of a ruined world. They remind­ed me of the end­ing of William Gib­son’s sci­ence fic­tion nov­el Count Zero, when a bril­liant com­put­er dis­tills the few remain­ing frag­ments of a ruined civ­i­liza­tion into exquis­ite lit­tle con­struc­tions. Or these lines from a Shake­speare son­net; “bare, ruined choirs, where late the sweet bird sang”.

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Jesseca Ferguson: Distant Views and Forgotten Dreams

Wednesday, February 1st, 1989

JESSECA FER­GU­SON’s con­struc­tions often con­tain old post­cards, which seem to have been sent from places that have long since dis­ap­peared. Lost, ruined, or for­got­ten, they have left behind only pale and ghost­ly traces. Enshrined in lit­tle box­es, like the bones of saints in medieval reli­quar­ies, her work cel­e­brates the some­times mirac­u­lous pow­er of mem­o­ry to trans­form the pain and com­plex­i­ty of real life into the stuff of dreams, and art.

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