Laura Hudspith

 2017

Low Hanging Fruit

The cast objects and altered readymades in Low Hanging Fruit combine en mass to create absurdist sculptural collages that connect desire (food ritual, sex, glamour, and violence) to the question of agency. Reminiscent of fishnet apparel, the brightly coloured assemblage in Cornucopia spills forth from a golden foot bound up in netting made for bundling fruit. Fleshy delicacies, embedded objects, and assorted fruits are reflected on a mirrored plane, while press-on acrylic nails tear into the flesh of an imitation stonefruit in Peach’s Peaches. Garden (Bridal Bouquet) invites its visitors to indulge and leave their chewed detritus behind.

Low Hanging Fruit Print Series

Left to right: Coco 2; Earhart; and Coco 1 (2017). Editions of ten. Archival Inkjet Prints ; 12 x 18” ; framed 13.5 x 19.5"

Peach’s Peaches [video] & Prints

HD video ; 00:09:58 hr duration. Lighting and videography by Tamara Léger.

TL;DR

Solo Exhibition. Accompanying exhibition text by Ashley McLellan here.

Combining sculpture, video projection, and neon, TL;DR dramatically transforms a space where only the light emanating from each work illuminates the next. In its original configuration, Burial–a large unmarked mound–emerges from surrounding dense turf at the center of the space. Slow, rhythmic light pulses from within dense flora saturated with viscous biofluids. Nearby, neon light casts the flippant message “tl;dr” across the scene and creates the sense of an impassable force within the space. Based on a passage from an Alice Monro novel, On the Table is projected at cinematic dimensions. The tableau vivant depicts a near motionless woman amidst both real and faux, fresh and rotting delicacies. The figure is at once hyper-sexed and neutered, her body revealed underneath a clear plastic dress so tight as to flatten her curvature. Fruit begins to rot, pink milk sours, a glass of sanguine liquid is overturned. An endless loop, the video conjures a sense of stagnation and tension as the feast putrefies and reforms, the woman only momentarily emerging from stasis to look directly towards the viewer.

On the Table Print Series

On the Table : Video Still Diptych Variations # 2 & 3 (2017). Edition of five ; Diptych ; Archival inkjet prints ; each 12 x 18” ; framed 13.5 x 19.5”