The term "traverse" signifies a dynamic array of possible movements: to extend, summit, pivot, span, swivel, orbit, cross, and roam. In this exhibition, four artists—Gwen Comings, Casey Egner, Lesia Mokrycke, and Rebecca Tennenbaum—contemplate the ways in which such trajectories transform physical or psychological expanses, echo through time, and conduct energy. Traversals is co-curated by Naoko Adachi and Ramey Mize and inaugurates the second annual Incubation Series, which will run September 2 - 24, 2016, at New Boon(e), 253 N. 3rd Street, Philadelphia.
Gwen Comings coheres material and memory in uncanny sculptures that recall domestic interiors and Americana more generally. The artist draws from personal experience living in rural poverty to imbue each object with an inherent dysfunctionality; recognizable materials, such as gingham, incite collective memory and intimate the ephemeral nature of the built environment and the comings and goings within it. Casey Egner’s work engages diagrammatic language to bridge and collapse dimensionality, employing symbols that evoke legends, blueprints, routes, and inertia to explore real and imagined space(s). Photographic installations by Lesia Mokrycke probe the natural world’s capacity to archive human processes, rhythms, and history. The imperceptible transference of energy between organic bodies, environments, and quotidian objects informs Rebecca Tennenbaum’s sculptures; each piece structurally conveys the implied connectivity within closed systems, such as electrical appliances. In sum, Traversals takes as its mantle the nuance of navigation through landscapes of abstract, artificial, earthly, and subconscious proportions.
