Otra Vox is pleased to present a new series of paintings by Brooklyn-based artist Amelia Carley. Thinking About Forgetting is based on Carley’s practice of deriving memories from her childhood exploring western, desert landscapes to construct a visual representation of an artificial place.
The paintings on view depict an imagined land through toxically bright and otherworldly forms. Through layers of light and shadow, as if existing within different times of the day, the work considers how your environment can change almost immediately without being aware of the transition.
Carley’s process starts with collecting debris from a rehabilitated landfill located in southeast Brooklyn’s Glass Bottle Beach from trash washed up on its shores. It attracts glass debris so densely that the whole beach is full of remnants up to 100 years old, from full bottles to aged, smooth sea glass. Carley then constructs small models and, through several manipulations, translates trash into strange worlds on canvas.
As we begin to understand our new anthropogenic reality, Carley questions the authenticity of her past (and future) experiences in nature. Hyper-saturated bright colors often associated with poison and toxicity in the natural world reference the earth’s changing surface. Considering how we often experience nature through layers of mediation, these works contemplate where ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ overlap through representations of fabricated environments.
Thinking About Forgetting will be on view online and in the gallery from May 21 to June 12, 2022.
