Jesse Small || Shi Tou (Soaked)

JESSE SMALL - Shi Tou (Soaked)
March 17 - April 19, 2007

This is to let you know that the next exhibition in Nancy Hoffman’s Project Space will be an installation of steel and porcelain sculpture by Jesse Small, entitled "Shi Tou" (Soaked). This exhibition, the artist’s first solo show with the gallery, opens on March 17 and continues through April 19, 2007. The show features folding screens, chandeliers, mirrors and porcelain figurines.

Shi Tou, 2007, installation view

Small lived and worked in China for a year after receiving his M.F.A. degree. The exhibition title acknowledges the time spent in China, as well as constituting a visual metaphor of "soaked." The artist takes soaked to mean saturated, in this case not with water, but a gallery saturated with his work, his personal concept of ornamental theory in the form of folding screens, chandeliers, grand mirrors and vessel-like porcelain shapes, all of which he draws from his life experience.

Above: Ghost, 2007, porcelain
Into the Copious (detail), 2007, steel

Below: Sputnik Five, 2007, steel and porcelain

Small writes about the "Shi Tou" exhibition:

This work is a fusion of organic lines and circuit boards, cloud motifs and video game icons, creating forms that are a sort of Deco for the 21st Century: antiques from the future. The images that become patterns in my work are sampled from influences that range from my childhood, to architecture and design processes.

I started making the porcelain ghost sculptures in Jiingdezhen, China, inspired by the popularity of ghost-defense items there. The neighborhood I was working in mass produced porcelain figurines of all sizes, whose purpose was to ward off ghosts. Conceptually, I wanted to create a "ghost figurine" that would welcome, instead of ward off, and give form to something invisible.

But how to make a ghost-shaped figurine? While I was developing the form, I used my memories of the Pac-Man video game "ghost" characters, which form the overall shape of these sculptures. I found a visual language that is loosed from culturally specific references, i.e., video game--a global language.

Pac-Man in Mandarin Chinese is "cher dou," which means "eats beans." The ghost figurines uncovered a shared experience of which I was unaware, because the visual language is exactly the same, spread globally with no language barriers. Utilizing video games and other techno-graphics in my work allows me to explore language, both personal and global.

"Shi Tou" can shift the viewer’s sense of time and possibilities. The folding screens, chandeliers and grand mirrors are meant to establish an atmosphere that feels anti-quated and domestic, while clearly portraying contemporary urban influences, and stylized, industrial video imagery.

My works are not "chandeliers" or "mirrors" per se, but shadows of the familiar objects, sculptures that usurp the mirror’s or chandelier’s space, using pedestrian and personal design. This is to experiment with the realms of the opulent past and the disposable present, the shared experience and personal memories, and to investigate something new by bringing them together.

Say Something

Above: Lantern Transmission, 2007, steel

Left: Say Something, 2006-2007, steel and plastic

Below: Say Something (detail)

Say Something (detail)

Small's first solo show at Nancy Hoffman provides a rich and layered tapestry of ornament in porcelain and steel, and a fresh approach to the concept of "decoration" that is both beautiful and whimsical, powerful and playful, evocative and provocative.

Space Invader Ghost,
2006-2007, porcelain

Talk Bubbles, 2006-2007,
porcelain

Jesse William Arthur Small was born in 1974. He received a B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute, Missouri and an M.F.A. from Alfred University, New York. He was a Lighton International Artists Exchange Program Recipient, Kansas City Artists Coalition, Missouri, and took his residency at Experimental Sculpture Factory, Jingdezhen, China.

Rain Multiplier (1 and 2), 2007, steel and mirror

into the copius

Into the Copious
2007, steel
(detail below)

into the Copius Detail

The artist resides in Kansas City, Kansas.

download Jesse Small's Artist Profile