SMMoCA is pleased to present Sadie Laska’s solo exhibition Happening Anywhere with an accompanying installation by Peter Coffin called Volumes.
Sadie is a visual artist whose work adapts to the psychological landscape of our time and to the practical circumstances of being an artist, musician and mother as these inform her practice. The work that Sadie has prepared for her exhibition was made to travel to various places and adapt to new settings, integrating her process and her journey.
During Covid, while raising a newborn, access to her studio became limited. Sadie shifted her art practice from large scale oil paintings to a domestic working space using mediums and materials at hand. She began to sew ready-made blank colored flags and found fabrics. Sadie describes her collaged flags, like most of her art, as non-precious; “Art making has to happen anywhere and in any condition.” The cut and resewn artworks hanging at SMMoCA reference the shape and sensibility of flags, but upend expectations with their playful imagery. We see loosely painted clip art, images of airplanes, pointing fingers, talking heads and cursors all collaged together to suggest political tensions and environmental concerns, as well as moments of intimacy, grief, or joy.
Sadie’s flags stand for freedom of process and continual exploration in the context of a world in which so much is directed by public relations and powers that profit from influencing our thoughts and behaviors. In the present context, making flags that circumvent fixed meaning and codification is an act of political freedom.
Portions of the artworks in this exhibition have been adapted from previous artwork, and Sadie intends for Happening Anywhere to be a movable exhibition that evolves across spaces and environments. Sadie brought her sewing machine to SMMoCA with the idea that her work on display and her ongoing process will be impacted by her time in a new environment. Sadie’s approach to making flags calls to mind Crosby Stills and Nash song lyrics: “Almost cut my hair / Happened just the other day / Kind of long / I could’ve said it was in my way / But I didn’t and I wonder why / I feel like letting my freak flag fly” an approach that encourages process to do what it will naturally without anticipating an outcome.
Accompanying Sadie’s solo exhibition is an installation by Peter Coffin called Volumes. Coffin’s interest in the round voids implied by deer antlers led him to present deer and moose trophies in ALCA’s Large Hall as opportunities to bring a phenomenon, that is curious and troubling in equal measure, from suburban areas to a rural environment. It has been documented that deer and elk have accidentally trapped play balls in their antlers while wandering in people’s yards. While some people in these regions hunt and occasionally commemorate their hunt with a taxidermied trophy, we might consider this from another point of view: just as strange as deer getting beach balls and kick balls stuck in their antlers.
These exhibitions combine the sensibilities of two artists who approach their practice in complimentary ways. Both explore unexpected input, play, adaptability and multiple perspectives to ask questions with their art. What is a familiar perspective and what is a foreign one? What is unnatural to some but natural to others? What can we gain from perspectives that are unusual to us? Making a flag without a prescribed meaning or art without prescribed meaning is itself a kind of purpose. Strange perspectives and strange purpose are the subject of Gary Larson comics from The Far Side - ways of looking at the world that inform the practice of both artists.