OGDEN, UT.- Ogden Contemporary Arts opened with a new exhibition: Ideal Home. The exhibit features distinct bodies of work by multidisciplinary artists Elizabeth Alexander and Kasey Lou Lindley. Together, the artists’ works represent unique processes in paper, collage, and installation art, connecting concepts that reflect on the idealism of home in past and present-day America.
Ideal Home brings together female artists who hail from different sides of the country, but whose works draw connections between local and national conversations. “This exhibition not only furthers our organization’s commitment to attracting nationally recognized artists while uplifting local creatives and curators, but also continues our mission to highlight timely and relevant societal topics with an accessibility too often lacking in contemporary art,” stated Venessa Castagnoli, Executive Director, Ogden Contemporary Arts.
Elizabeth Alexander’s body of work, Objects of Desire, explores the ways in which domestic perfection is at odds with the reality of humanity. Her installations utilize nostalgic, home-related objects that were once coveted symbols of success such as wallpaper, porcelain ware, and distinct furniture pieces in ways that insert chaotic beauty into spaces of domestic harmony. Her work unpacks the social, cultural, and psychological implications of American idealism around domesticity, representing home as a space that “serves both as a projection of our ideal self and one that houses our darkest and brightest moments,” states Alexander.
“I think about what it might look like if the spaces we inhabit embodied our emotions and the more complicated elements of ourselves,” said Alexander. “Contrary to the idyllic image of the unblemished American home, I ask if a space that holds financial stress, trauma, chronic pain, or mental illness can still carry love, magic, and joy.”
Ideal Home also explores the exterior environment of an “ideal home,” which Kasey Lou Lindley addresses with her body of work, Future Gardens. Current drought conditions in Utah and the West are challenging our societal obsession with manicured lawns and residential green space. Lindley’s watercolor paintings, digital collages and immersive video installation represent an ideal future for American gardens and landscapes, presenting imagery of drought-tolerant foliage from Utah and around the world.
“Future Gardens examines place-based environmental issues with an optimistic lens, offering solutions for a more just and hopeful future,” states Lindley. “It begs the question: what can humans do to be more responsible stewards of our local landscapes and earthly home?”
Ideal Home is guest-curated by Kelly Carper, an independent consultant whose work is centered around promoting art and aesthetics both at home and in the community. “I think it’s an interesting time to talk about home,” says curator Kelly Carper. “We’ve spent a lot of time in our personal spaces over the past few years, which have held dueling emotions and activities such as stress and joy, work and play, safety and confinement, stagnation, and transition. It’s caused us to consider what our ideal home really looks like, what we value in our homes and why. These ideas bring up interesting and layered conversations that the artists speak to in the show.”
Elizabeth Alexander ((Winston-Salem, North Carolina) is an interdisciplinary artist specializing in sculptures and installations made from deconstructed domestic materials. She holds degrees in sculpture from the Cranbrook Academy, MFA, and Massachusetts College of Art, BFA, where she discovered the complex nature of dissecting objects of nostalgia. Her work has exhibited across the country at institutions including the Museum of Art and Design, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Southeast Center for Contemporary Art, the Nasher Museum at Duke University, the Currier Museum and is included in permanent collections at the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, AR, Fidelity, and the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC. She is Associate Professor and Coordinator for the Sculpture Department at the Montserrat College of Art.
Kasey Lou Lindley (Salt Lake City, Utah) is a multidisciplinary artist that examines place-based issues through the lens of Ecofeminism and Intersectional Environmentalism. Kasey grew up in Utah, and is heavily influenced by the landscapes she was immersed in as a child. These early experiences have inspired Kasey to pinpoint environmental challenges, in search of solutions. Her work utilizes painting, and multimedia installation to investigate the relationship between humans and the environment. Kasey received her BFA from the Ringling College of Art & Design, and her MFA from the University of Connecticut. She has exhibited nationally and internationally. In 2017 she was the recipient of the Cynthia Eyre Award and the Melusine Award for Painting from the Honolulu Museum of Art.
