Tag: paige emery

Human connection and relationships are at the heart of Paige Emery’s “Ritual Veriditas” at Coaxial. Though small in size, the works create an immersive experience with video, sound and mixed-media visuals created entirely by the artist. The praxis of “Ritual Veriditas” can be found in the name—Emery shares rituals that are vulnerable, earnest and otherwise private with the audience. Dried rosemary and sage hang from the ceiling, while three plant altars (Veriditas) sit in the middle of the room. Above the altars hang two figurative paintings, painted on transparent PPE barrier shields. Each day Emery will perform a ritual from her home practice in her garden that includes burning sage and rosemary, and audience members can view the ritual either in person or through a live stream video. The atmosphere of the show is ethereal, and the music paired with the lighting give the impression that the space is one of meditation, while the hanging figurative paintings continuously move and sway making the figures look like dancers.

With so many elements, the show engages and becomes more enthralling the more one looks. No detail is overlooked; even the epiphytic plants were chosen for their metaphorical properties of symbiotic relationships. The video Where the Swamp Meets the Sea (2021) also uses ecological properties to explore the human condition, and meditate on where one begins and the other ends. This metaphor of boundaries, space, separation and closeness is at the heart of each element, and even extend toward artist and viewer, human and object, space and self. The space serves as both a proposition and an answer for something that is both age old and somehow fresh—what does it mean to be an independent human, and does that even exist?

The show opens up a dialogue of something that is both novel and timely— how do we connect, renter society and form human connections in a post-COVID world. During the pandemic many people took to meditation and ritual to cope, and we have even developed new cultural norms and practices that would have seemed strange in a previous time. By exploring her own personal practice, Emery has touched on something universal, and invites the audience to both engage with her in her practice and to ponder their own rituals and existence.

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May 14-16, 21-23, & 28 3-6pm PDT

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May 23, 2021
3:33 pm PDT
twitch.tv/coaxialarts

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Saturday May 29, 2021 8pm PDT
twitch.tv/coaxialarts