Kate Dodd - Outerwear/Omnipresent: Opening Reception

My focus on ephemeral works, and my deep love of manipulating nontraditional art media, has led me to working primarily with discarded materials, and therefore to addressing issues of consumption and waste in much of my recent work. When I see materials being disposed of, without much thought, I see both treasure and mistreatment, and feel an immediate need to resurrect the neglected and disrespected. I’m interested in using multiple small objects to create large structures that bring attention to the beauty and potential of repurposed materials while fostering a greater understanding of the effect our habits have on the environment.

In my series, entitled “Outerwear”, fragile constructions are meant as imaginary, and futile, protective gear, protection from both the mistakes of the past and the revenge of the future, particularly in terms of climate change. They evolved out of a love for the imagery and printing techniques in outdated reference materials. The information in these materials is often dated, projecting a celebration of humanity’s ability to exploit nature and each other at a time when that no longer makes sense.

The interactive installation I am developing for this show, “Omnipresent”, will fill the back gallery completely. I am creating a structure, made entirely out of corrugated plastic political campaign signs from the 2024 elections, that have been cut up into strips and joined together to create a continuous planar network parallel to the floor. This large surface will begin on the left side of the floor of the back room and rise to 54”, or approximately “neck” height for an average adult, at the far end of the room, and then return along the right side of the room sloping up to 9’. A freestanding “island” of the same material, 54” high and level throughout, will run down the center of the space, thereby creating a walkway between the island and the network to the left and right sides of the island. Visitors will be encouraged to walk the resulting “circuit”, and as they go down the length of the room and back, their heads will remain visible above the planar surface while their bodies are subsumed by it. They will become disembodied heads in a sea of plastic political advertising. There are lots of ways to interpret this, and there will probably be many more by the time we get to June 2025, at the rate we’re going! But the installation will generally suggest our fractured nation, and the rising tide of money, advertising, and waste in our democracy.