NEW YORK, NY.- Arts+Leisure is presenting Infinite Infinite, an exhibition of new work by Aimee Odum. Melding video, ceramics, and fragments of a variety of sculptural and technological materials, Odum forges a dialogue between nature and technology, juxtaposing physical tactility with the conditions of the digital screen.
Above all, Odum’s practice suggests that the natural world and that contained within our smartphones are not quite the polar opposites they may seem. Technology and digital imaging inform the ways in which we interface with nature, while the exigencies of our environment often define our technological needs, with the two ricocheting off each other in a mutually reflexive relationship. Describing her consciousness of this inseparable duality and its presence in contemporary reality, Odum writes, “In terms of perception, there is little separation between nature and technology. We view the world more through a technological lens than through our own eyes and beings. The idea of ‘nature’ is not a new social construct, but the way it circulates digitally is constantly evolving.”
In Infinite Infinite, the artist expresses the constructive and creative potential of this interplay, drawing the intrinsic elements of each into enigmatic sculptural assemblages. Embedding, which consists of a glazed ceramic rock, acrylic glass, and copper wire, also includes an iPhone playing a single channel video of a desert landscape augmented with a digital rendering of a shimmering lake. Here, the fusion of nature with technology takes on an almost utopian character, marked by a digital intervention upon a barren locale.
The Other pairs a clay ladder with a projection of the same object, further commenting on the liminal state that exists in the overlap of the real and the digital. The projection surges and pulses, contrasting with the solidity of the clay form, calling attention to the constant flux that underscores the relationship of the two spheres. Infinite Imprint, another work featuring an iPhone, lies firmly in this ambiguous space. Nestled amongst amorphous sculptural objects, constructed with both natural and synthetic materials, the role of the technological device is obfuscated, instead integrated into a unified melange of materials and origins.
Aimee Odum is a visual artist residing in Brooklyn, New York. She received her MFA in Studio Art from University of Arkansas, Fayetteville where she was the Director of sUgAR Gallery and sUgAR Vision, an Internet and televised art platform. Odum recently curated Vibrant Things for Jane Hartsook Gallery, Greenwich House Pottery, New York and served on the Organizational Committee for Nasty Women, NYC, which presented its inaugural event January 2017. Invited to speak about her work, Odum participated in the symposium Local Views in conjunction with the State of the Art exhibition at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville. She has exhibited nationally and internationally at locations such as Satellite Art Show (Miami, FL with Arts+Leisure); The Living Art Museum (Reykjavik, Iceland); Mengi (Reykjavik, Iceland); Random Access Gallery, Syracuse University, (Syracuse, NY); Negar Art Gallery, (Tehran, Iran); Hectoliter, (Brussels, Belgium); and GRIN, (Providence, RI). Recipient of the Sturgis International Fellowship, Odum was a Visiting Artist at Iceland Academy of the Arts, and participated in the DNA Summer Residency in 2017. She is currently a recipient of the Peripheral Visions Arts Publication Fellowship, to be released in print March 2018.
