Cairnatopia, Sator Projects, Portland, OR 2022
A cairn is a marker, a memorial, a constructed object — a memory arranged for a space and viewer. Historically, a cairn is constructed of piled rocks, sometimes as few as three to mark a trail or as large as a hillside. They pre-date history and can be found in every culture across the globe, the simple and universal act of a person stacking, making a pile from the objects around them to make a mark, preserve a memory or send a message.
In CAIRNATOPIA, artist Nan Curtis presents a distinctive cache of found objects and constructed forms. This new body of work showcases various mediums, including; kiln-formed glass, construction flags, and springs from an old mattress. Intensely personal possessions, a handmade indigo-dyed and woven rug, diaries, childhood dolls, boxes of ashes from deceased pets, and the urn of the artist's father coalesce, carefully and precariously, arranged in piles, stacks – cairns. They denote place, purpose, memory, and admiration while being sportive and comical.
Materiality is at the forefront of Curtis’s work and continues to be a source of inspiration in these new sculptures. Curtis used her studio’s library to draw from, full of scrap metals and furniture, cloth, fabrics, stones, and tangible curiosities. Many of these items are things Curtis has accumulated over the years; transported and cared for between homes, studios, and back again. The playfulness in Curtis’s work hints at constructed worlds, the unknown, and the counterintuitive. An ongoing fascination occurs when working with a medium or belonging. In this collection of sculptures, she often used the material as a starting point for exploration. Following the lead of the material, the action of making seeking to perceive; markers and monuments, memorials and direction.
Curtis constructs a uniquely individualized series of works that are odes to reminiscence, relationships, and time. However, their meaning and importance are also characteristically cultural, communal, and universal. The indeterminate and fractal way heritage, existence, and recollection are altered and displaced over time are not only explored but exalted.
- Ashley Gifford
