Casual Labor

Casual Labor presents new work in sculpture and photography by Alex Clausen, Zachary Royer Scholz and Kirk Stoller. Working in a process perhaps best described as material collaboration, these artists create surprising combinations of furniture, building materials and disparate household supplies. In their new and unexpected relationships, these odd assemblages disrupt our assumptions about appropriateness. We might pause to question the evidence of a history we can’t seem to make sense of. Why is that enormous exercise ball strapped to a household banister and furthermore, how did that flowered sofa cushion end up in a field of raked dirt?

Alex Clausen arrives as an invited guest into the home. Quietly assessing the domestic environment’s implied dynamics, he proceeds to interrupt the normal flow of life by creating temporary structures within the space. Working with the objects and sometimes even the inhabitants of the home, he draws out clues about the household’s social space, which now also includes the artist and his interactions. He then photographs his structures and assemblages, and these photographs are often further manipulated by the addition of paint and hand-drawn details.

Zachary Royer Scholz also looks for unexpected possibilities in the everyday. As he assembles mundane materials in wildly unexpected iterations, Zachary shifts the boundaries of meaning with subversive humor. The conventions of our environment are disrupted by these manipulations; the interplay of broken-down furniture and cast-off foam rubber creates new meanings with the force of a stick in a stream redirecting the water flow.

Kirk Stoller‘s physically challenging works in sculpture explore the relationship between formality and casualness, connection and support. Kirk works oppositionally as he meticulously stacks layers of used building materials and abandoned lumber covered in peeling paint, relying on the wall as a stabilizing force. These carefully stacked shapes explore formal issues of composition even as they are derived from thoroughly informal materials. Shape, size, color and pattern are given consideration, while the material simultaneously reveals a physical history of past actions. Retaining a reference to previous existence and objecthood, the work examines the strength of association and context.

Please join us for a Gallery Talk with the Artists on Wednesday, March 5 at 7:00pm. This event is free and open to the public.

Exhibitions are free and open to the public.