An artist who works in a variety of mediums, in the scale of the miniature is Rose Eken. She references a culture of the club musician through instruments and their electronic equipment; cigarettes and liquor bottles; set lists and fast food; records and the milk crates which might hold them or serve as the listeners' seat. In the ceramic medium, worked with unfired stoneware and then moved to glazed paper clay. She recreates glossy, bright, recognizable labels and surface decoration on sculptures which have a playful, abstracted handling reminiscent of Funk Movement artists like Robert Arneson or Edward Kienholz. She first was creating vignette installations, evoking a scene of set up or the aftermath of an energetic live music show. Eken would also set up and photograph miniature sets of interior and exterior spaces. Now, she is creating ordered set ups which contain neatly arranged collections of these elements she was sculpting. I think its fantastic that, save for her videos, there is an absence of the physical figure, but a reference to its material and musical culture. There were several points in my life when I saw the detritus left by show goers in a space, several times a week, still feeling the energy of the crowd that had just been entertained. I very much appreciate her nod to this lifestyle.
|