Reflections on the work of contemporary artists
POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 19, 2022 BY ETTY YANIV
Habby Osk: No Tricks Involved
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The exhibition comprises eight photographs and two sculptures. All works explore the tension that exists in stasis, the singular moment, seemingly impossible, when after a painstakingly laborious process, a problem is instantaneously solved. Osk explores these ideas through materials that are themselves transient and unpredictable like wax, jello – even sugar.
The works are deliberately placed in precarious positions or on the verge of falling, breaking or transforming – creating a feeling of anticipation – as if movement, change, or even destruction is about to happen. And yet they stand still. The anticipation of contingency. It is this essence of stillness, the ephemeral moment, that Osk captures in her photographs. Within this perpetual precarity the viewer discovers a feeling of serenity.
The feeling of stillness is further captured in Osk’s sculptures as they are tested and stretched to their limits. The extended springs holding the work together dig into the wax challenging the integrity of the structure, as once again we witness this tension in status, this moment when change is inevitable.
NARS is pleased to present Hush, an exhibition curated by Eva Mayhabal Davis and with works by Gabriel Bielawski, Matthew Cronin, Traci Hercher, Andrew Yong Hoon Lee, Habby Osk, Whitney Ramage and Daniela Stubbs-Levi.
Reflecting on the tension that social crisis creates on the world, these artists set forth bodies of work that are introspective on themselves, their own history, and the still lives that perpetually continue with the pendulum of time.
Often working in solitude, the artist in their studio is but a romantic notion that in reality embraces the cacophony of the outside. Noise imprints that are visually studied and balanced with lines, textile, and sculpture. The works presented here embrace a quality of stillness, a hush. That breaks down the noise. In a spectrum of mediums, noises are observed, they sit still, opaque and quiet. There are traces of time –past, present, future or reminders of a physical space where silence is louder than sounds.