Tiernen Warner (left) and Ximenna Hofsetz (right) on September 16 at their exhibit "why we bend" at the Step Gallery.? (Photo by Emily Johnson)Walking into “why we bend” at the Step Gallery in downtown Phoenix, one is likely struck with the following thought: “Gee-whiz, were I to magically manifest the internal landscape of a mind’s memories into a tangible form, it would look awfully similar to this.” And, indeed, it certainly does feel as though you’re stepping into an intimate recess of the minds of the exhibit’s creators — printmaking seniors Tiernan Warner and Ximenna Hofsetz.
Neuron-esque bars jut from several walls, weaving their way across a space deposited with fragments of another time; in one corner, a television tuned to a loop ad infinitum of a scene from “Mars Attacks” lights a cozy living room across from a New Balance shoe blown to unreal proportions.
A familiar scent floats through the air, but you just can't put your finger on it. Does it remind you of your mother’s perfume? Your grandmother’s living room? The whole space feels incredibly surreal — like you’ve been dropped in the dream of a not so distant stranger and left to wander.
“If cognitive space could be physically mapped, what would it look like?” is a rhetorical question buried in Hofsetz’s statement along the eastern wall of the gallery, but it very well could have been the guiding question behind the whole project — and the artists answer it marvelously.
Hofsetz, who has a background in biology and is behind the metal sculpture that winds through the room, was drawn to the task of creating 3-D forms of intangible concepts like memories.
“Our relationship with memory cannot simply reveal itself as a smooth picturesque timeline. It might better be represented as growing and changing, fracturing through the space of the mental universe, with fragmented, emotion linked outbursts,” she said. Hence the twisting path of the sculpture embellished with 3-D shapes and images.
Lying amidst this welded web are Warner’s contributions to “why we bend” — representations of objects from her past.
“When I bring to mind a past experience, what stands out to me are the objects related to that memory — the shoes my dad would wear, the first cell phone my parents bought after the divorce, the baseball pennants hung on my brother’s wall in the Virginia house," she said. "These singular, ubiquitous objects act both as meaningful symbols encapsulating the way I felt at a certain point.”
The recreation of a living room — complete with white carpeting and issues of National Geographic — is, for Warner, a mishmash of different memories. “Mars Attacks,” a movie that frightened Warner as child, plays next to a vintage Nordic Track exercise machine she remembers using pieces of to ski across the carpet.
While these objects are firmly rooted in Warner’s personal recollections, there’s something about the space that will likely seem familiar to everyone that takes the time to take their shoes off (yes, this is encouraged) and allow your senses to cull an inevitable sense of nostalgia and fragmented memories from the deep corners of your own mind.
??An art exhibit by Hofsetz and Warner at the opening of "why we bend" at the Step Gallery on Sept. 16 (Photo by Emily Johnson)The creation of this visceral and personal experience was important for Warner, who hopes visitors really immerse themselves in the space.
“Instead of just talking about these memories, I try to encapsulate one,” she said.
The selection of objects (see: a birthday crown cut from orange construction paper, the New Balance shoe, a well-worn sofa that, no doubt, has a striking similarity to the one your aunt who wears too much perfume owns, etc.) played a large role in creating an experience that reaches a larger audience.
“The reason I do a lot of ubiquitous objects is that I’d rather open up the dialog rather than keep turning it internally, because you can only talk about your own issues for so long,” she said. Warner would much rather have a conversation about what the Nordic Track reminds you of as opposed to rehashing what it means to her.
While it seems as though Warner and Hofsetz’s work go together like ink and paper, the two actually didn’t know they’d be showing their work together until after they’d submitted proposals to the Herberger School of Art. It was the school, in fact, that first noted how complimentary the two bodies of work were.
“I see memory like pinpoints on a map,” Warner said — whose work oh-so-coincidentally acts as the pinpoints along the mangled mental roadways illustrated by Hofsetz’s remarkable sculpture.
“We’re both essentially talking about the same thing, but you can see our different personalities and aesthetics by what we’ve put in there,” she said.
One can only hope that visitors to “why we bend” take the time to for a (minimum) twofold reflection. (1) Consider new ways of viewing the influence of memory on self and how it evolves over time, and (2) the convoluted paths memories make as they fire across the landscape of our minds, leaving us with only fragments.
Warner and Hofsetz will be on hand to chat about New Balance shoes and more on Sept. 19 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Step Gallery for the opening reception. Cereal, Kool-Aid and Capri Suns will be served. If this does not entice you, Beanie Babies will also be handed out to the first 75 visitors.
“why we bend” runs Sept. 18 - 27.
Visit the Step Gallery Monday - Saturday, noon - 5 p.m.
Reach the reporter at zachariah.webb@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @zachariahkaylar.
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