A small three-piece show of my work is currently on view at Erosion SLC, a pop-up gallery curated by Salt Lake City Artist Andrew Rice. He created a space for artists to show their work during a time last year when many galleries were not in operation, and to facilitate in depth conversations with artists about their work. The following words by Rice aptly describe each piece, in words that are different than my own, but very accurately get to the core of each piece in the show.
“The first three pieces highlighted for Lucia Volker’s show, “Moments of Reflection” at Erosion_SLC is 2020.19. A simple title notating the date of creation during a residency in WA, along the coast of the Pacific Northwest. I’m drawn to this simplicity in the titles as they echo the simple and ephemeral feeling the works evoke. A captured moment in time, this piece read like a memory of a specific desert landscape Volker will never get back. In the way that other experiences and other travels and moment in time will elicit their own memories and their own place’s in Volker’s memory.
During the residency when this work was created, Volker was surrounded by blues, grays, greens of the colder, wetter, and more lush Northwest. However, whether it was conscious or unconscious in her approach to the piece, she still pulled back to her ‘home’ in the Utah desert, ultimately creating a balanced palette that points the arrow more to the inclination of the dramatic and sometimes desolate landscape of the desert. There is a fragility to the piece that speaks to the ideas of erosion on the landscape and to the ephemeral, ever-changing visual scape that is the American West. Bits of iridescence capture the eye when you move around the piece, like a desert mirage.
There is an architectural figurative quality to the focal point of the piece, the blue/gray and brown ‘stones’ occupying the central portion. These are collages onto the existing painting, acting as a dominating visual force. They too have a fleeting feeling, with some edges pulled back from their matrix, reminding us that outside forces, like time and wind could alter the whole structure over time.
These pieces truly need to be experienced in person to see and appreciate the subtle nuances within. “
-Andrew Rice
Instagram @erosion_slc
“2020.19” acrylic and collage on paper © 2020 Lucia Volker