An ouroboros of hair and vomit surges through an arched body; vulvic lilypads share a tender moment of caress; aluminum breasts perched above erect flower stocks posture as suits of armor, guardians, gargoyles; a tantalizing cocoon drips from above; a nest of braids, ribbons, and bows snarl and embrace; hair coiled around a pit lures and echoes with longing; an arched spine resembling a monstrous mollusk rests vulnerably on the ground. 

Equal parts tender and terrifying, Shana Hoehn’s solo exhibition, “A Tangle of Limbs and Long Hair,” feeds my grotesque-romantic fetishes and sensibilities. Hoehn’s emphasis on materiality is a tether that unites the exhibition through her use of organic and non-organic materials and a range of processes and techniques such as woodworking, 3D printing, etching and hand drawing. The show is informed by the artist’s experience growing up in the American South, living on terrain defined by its resurgent swamplands and dynamic ecosystem that manages to survive in spite of the insurmountable pain and trauma that lurks in the water and soil. 

Hoehn presents notions of beginnings and endings–cycles of life and death–that are cohabitational, complex, tangled and fragmented. While the strange poetics of the show might resemble familiar fairytales and fantasies, Hoehn also presents alternative ways of thinking about life and death that more accurately reflect our shared reality rather than relying on the stale, unimaginative scripts we have inherited. In Hoehn’s tangle of limbs and hair, living beings exist in constant states of deformation and re-creation–ceaselessly tethering, entangling and unwinding. While this dualism is inherently brutal, even cruel, “learning to live and die well together” (as Donna Haraway puts it) might allow for better conditions of care and possibilities for transformation.

Make Room Los Angeles
5119 Melrose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90038
On view through October 15, 2022