Sonya Blesofsky
Detour Ahead
“Urban theorists posit that we experience the city by the way in which we move through it. My work is directly inspired by my daily commutes in the city on foot, bicycle, bus, car or train. This site-specific installation is based on ubiquitous guardrails that run along the sides of highways, roads and freeway off-ramps all over the country. I wanted to draw attention to an overlooked element that contributes to our experience of the urban environment, and performs an important function.
My work comes from a place of great anxiety about things being unstable or falling apart. I often dream of driving my car off the side of a cliff or a bridge, and I feel the real-life danger that comes with driving and riding in cars. The guardrail, like the fire escape, is a structure that at once represents our worst fear and greatest hope.
Important elements in my work are engineering, scale, shadows/darkness and easily recognizable materials. Once built, each piece will soon break, decay or be deconstructed. There is a sense of urgency to experience each temporary piece. It is also important that the process of creating these structures be left exposed. With this work I intend to generate questions and emphasize tension relating to dialectics of creation and destruction, vulnerability and indestructibility, the light and the dark, and stability and the tenuous.”
-Sonya Blesofsky
October 15th - October 23rd
Opening Thursday October 21st, 7-10pm
This exhibition marks Sonya's second time showing at SHO Gallery, this time she is featured in our first solo exhibition. There are some photos of her previous installation on the Get the Led Out page.
Sonya Blesofsky is represented by Mixed Greens.
