Beyond Surface

Description:

Beyond Surface brought together sculptures by Sarah Stevenson and collages by Sara Leydon. The title of the exhibition references the artists’ mutual concern with memory and surface as both a subjects and sites of inscription. The exhibition brought together a shared interest in signification over symbolism to question the codes and values of the patriarchal hegemony; citing the feminist project “écriture feminine” which proposes a re-writing of the female “other.”

Stevenson’s sculptures were built from dented, patinated, and translucent wrought structures—materials that referenced industrial and post-industrial commodification. Her sculptural assemblages seemed at once fragile and indestructible, contemporary yet rooted in the past, and abstract yet strangely familiar.

Similarly, Leydon’s small-scale collages from her Eidolons series carried the aura of archival remnants. Incorporating advertising material, graphite lines, and found magazine texts and graphics, they bore the appearance of aged documents.

Together, Leydon’s collages and Stevenson’s sculptural groupings gestured toward questions of endurance and viability, as if transmitting signals from the past into the future.

Curated by Annette Hurtig.