July 22 – August 8, 2021
The Living Room presents Isabel Rower’s first solo exhibition, A Particular Kind of Heaven. Working primarily with clay, Rower utilizes the forms of somewhat everyday objects to explore the transformative properties of material and the elements of nature. “There is a secrecy to working with clay. One feels connected to periods of ancient human activity, which serve as primary source records of cultural meaning and mysticism. The enigma is present, “ says Rower. “In processes of consecration, religious objects are transformed from the ordinary to the sacred. The object becomes linked, permanently or temporarily, with an immaterial sacredness or divinity. Yet it is not only religious objects which have this connection to the ethereal.”
A Particular Kind of Heaven explores transforming the functional into something simultaneously symbolic and sacred; into something beyond itself; investigating the gaps between the ethereal and real in forms intended for functional use. Ordinary objects have alterity, enigmatic presence. They may seem familiar to us, but they are slightly turned away. Although Rower’s objects are proportioned for use, it is through the process of transformation, of firing, and appreciation of its resulting form, that Rower bears witness to this fascinating state of existence.
