Items Similar to Set In Motion
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 7
Jessica HoustonSet In Motion2017
2017
About the Item
Going North in the Work of Jessica Houston
By L. Sasha Gora
Jessica Houston’s most recent works look north. What is north? Where is it? Is it a fixed place, or something else?
Her second solo show at Art Mûr brings together paintings, a sound sculpture, and chine collé prints, all of which reveal a fragile, fluid, and often fractured, north.
An iron ore stone becomes a speaker, playing recordings of interviews and singing, and expanding the physical presence of the stone. The exaggerated textures of the paintings give them, too, a sculptural and documentary feel. They record how actions—breaking and piercing, pushing and pulling—disrupt and transform the paintings’ surfaces. By resembling patterns one finds in the wild—scratches across the surface of a rock, uneven waves that form on melting snow—they unhinge any clear distinction between what is natural and what is made.
Made with a printmaking technique that binds together distinct papers, the chine collé prints begin with photographs Houston took of Baffin Island. She then combines the images with coloured paper, creating traces of the process of extracting and replacing parts of a scene, and an equal awareness of both what is present and absent.
Some are composed of double circles, like looking through binoculars. In Business As Usual, a decaying interior—peeling wallpaper, a rusted stove—is juxtaposed with the soft glow of a yellow circle. This continues Houston’s ongoing use of colour to question the particulars of perception.
Heritage of All, White with Greed and Iron, and The Spaces we Breath, Houston’s titles read like lines of a haiku. Composed as prose, they are also confrontational, mapping out the cultural and environmental impacts of the extraction of resources in the Arctic. We witness scenes of violent decay, and yet simply carry on, like Business As Usual. In What Nations Come and Go a pale purple oval nearly fills the frame, revealing only in the very far right a simple cabin in front of a rocky incline. A similar imposing cloud of colour, this time blue, dominates the landscape in Mapped, Claimed, and Evaluated.
The north is just as much an idea as it is a place, and is one that looms large in the Canadian imagination. There are few better examples than Glenn Gould’s The Idea of North: “But like all but a very few Canadians . . . I’ve had no direct confrontation with the northern third of our country . . . the north has remained for me a convenient place to dream about, spin tall tales about sometimes, and, in the end, avoid.” But Houston has gone north. The north she depicts is not faraway. It is no longer convenient to just dream about. The north Houston shows us is one that wears the signs of climate change and pollution, of the extraction of natural resources and the colonization of peoples. Houston’s north is uncertain and fragile, and warrants as close of a look as we can get.
- Creator:Jessica Houston (1970, American)
- Creation Year:2017
- Dimensions:Height: 21 in (53.34 cm)Width: 30 in (76.2 cm)
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Montreal, CA
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU4761670803
About the Seller
5.0
Vetted Seller
These experienced sellers undergo a comprehensive evaluation by our team of in-house experts.
Established in 1996
1stDibs seller since 2014
96 sales on 1stDibs
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Montreal, Canada
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 7 days of delivery.
More From This SellerView All
- Constructive InstabilityBy Lucas AguirreLocated in Montreal, QuebecDigital printing on Tyvek Lucas Aguirre is a painter who has transitioned his art practice into the realm of VR and digital art. His paintings and drawi...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsDigital
- Ancestral AcumenBy Nicholas GalaninLocated in Montreal, QuebecNicholas Galanin’s first solo exhibition at Galerie Art Mur combines sculptural works, multimedia installation and photographic prints from 2012-2019. A sharp observer of a broadly a...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsMonotype
- Death or Glory - Glorius Skull (Cool Gold - European Gold)By Damien HirstLocated in Montreal, QuebecFoil block print Edition 2 of 2 Born in Bristol England, in 1965, Damien Hirst grew up in Leeds and studied at Goldsmiths College, London. Most notable amongst the exhibitions he curated while at college was Freeze, in 1988, in which he exhibited his work and that of his contemporaries. The exhibition is widely believed to have been the starting point of the Young British Artist Movement, and a defining moment in kick-starting cutting edge British contemporary art. Hirst’s body of work confronts the scientific, philosophical and religious aspects of human existence and includes sculpture, painting and printmaking. He has exhibited widely and was awarded the Turner Prize in 1995 for The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. In 2004, Hirst collaborated with Sarah Lucas and Angus Fairhurst to exhibit recent works at Tate Britain, under the title In-a-Gadda-da-Vida. In 2006, works from the artist’s Murderme collection were exhibited at the Serpentine gallery, London: ‘In the darkest hour there may be light. ‘More recently, Hirst exhibited No Love Lost: Blue Paintings at The Wallace Collection, London, 2010; Cornucopia at Musée Océanographique de Monaco, 2010 and with Michael Joo...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsMixed Media, Archival Paper
- Ancestral AcumenBy Nicholas GalaninLocated in Montreal, QuebecNicholas Galanin’s first solo exhibition at Galerie Art Mur combines sculptural works, multimedia installation and photographic prints from 2012-2019. A sharp observer of a broadly a...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsMonotype
- Ancestral AcumenBy Nicholas GalaninLocated in Montreal, QuebecNicholas Galanin’s first solo exhibition at Galerie Art Mur combines sculptural works, multimedia installation and photographic prints from 2012-2019. A sharp observer of a broadly a...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsMonotype
- Corona DeathLocated in Montreal, QuebecBuilding on a series of exhibitions titled Panorama of the Anthropocene which examined the ecological impact of human activity through an array of paintings, digital prints and video...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsDigital, Canvas
You May Also Like
- S0015-Contemporary, Abstract, Minimalism, Modern, Pop art, Surrealist, LandscapeBy Francisco NicolásLocated in London, London"Selma's mountain" (digital pigment print on canvas, is a copy of the original painting) This work is unframed, without wood only the canvas no signed and without certificate of authenticity. His work has been shown in Reina Sofía Museum of Madrid, Royal Academy of London, Arco Madrid, Pinta Art Fair, London, London Art Fair, The Other Art Fair, London, and in numerous art galleries from London, Madrid, Barcelona y Paris. A concept used by Francisco Nicolás after 2010, is the idea of showing the picture window...Category
2010s Contemporary Mixed Media
MaterialsCanvas, Digital Pigment
- S0014-Contemporary, Abstract, Minimalism, Modern, Pop art, Surrealist, LandscapeBy Francisco NicolásLocated in London, London"Susana en el baño" (digital pigment print on canvas, is a copy of the original painting) This work is unframed, without wood only the canvas no signed and without certificate of a...Category
2010s Contemporary Mixed Media
MaterialsCanvas, Digital Pigment
- Untitled (Oyster) By Nicolas PartyBy Nicolas PartyLocated in London, GBUntitled (Oyster) By Nicolas Party 2011 Nicholas Party is a contemporary Swiss-born artist celebrated for his distinctive and colorful works encompassing painting, sculpture, and ...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsPaper
- No title (No 57) Photography 47" x 47" inch Ed. of 18 by Yevgeniy RepiashenkoBy Yevgeniy RepiashenkoLocated in Culver City, CANo title (No 57) Photography 47" x 47" inch Ed. of 18 by Yevgeniy Repiashenko No title (No 57) by Yevgeniy Repiashenko Year photo was taken: 2017 Limited Edition of 18 Picture size...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsPigment
- No title (No 31) Photography 47" x 47" inch Ed. of 18 by Yevgeniy RepiashenkoBy Yevgeniy RepiashenkoLocated in Culver City, CANo title (No 31) Photography 47" x 47" inch Ed. of 18 by Yevgeniy Repiashenko No title (No 31) by Yevgeniy Repiashenko Year photo was taken: 2018 Limited Edition of 18 Picture size...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsPigment
- No title (No 81) Photography 36" x 25" inch Ed. of 28 by Yevgeniy RepiashenkoBy Yevgeniy RepiashenkoLocated in Culver City, CANo title (No 81) Photography 36" x 25" inch Ed. of 28 by Yevgeniy Repiashenko No title (No 81) by Yevgeniy Repiashenko Year photo was taken: 2015 Limited Edition of 28 Picture size...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Figurative Prints
MaterialsPigment
Recently Viewed
View AllMore Ways To Browse
Go Set
Oval Print
Wallpapers In Blue Color
Gray And White Wallpaper
Canadian Rockies Painting
Yellow Pale Sculpture
Stone Sculptures Very Tall
Wallpapers Yellow Color
Canadian Rockies Paintings
Speaker Set
Purple Wallpaper
Multiple Piercing
Houston Map
Snow Iron
Framed Gould Prints
Large Binoculars
Iron Ore
Snow Cabin