Rivalry Projects is thrilled to present a booth of new works by Elizabeth Corkery, Hannah Secord Wade, and rocki swiderski, all of whom bring unique perspectives to contemporary dialogues on landscape, power, and climate.
Elizabeth Corkery, originally trained as a printmaker, connects conceptual concerns of repetition, reproduction, and simulation with spatial investigations that translate into two-dimensional print media, photography, and architectural interventions. In this series of works, she explores the ways in which the poaching, trade, and propagation of plants from colonized nations in the 19th Century influenced the growth of imperial Britain, and, in turn, how this industry fueled the development of modern interior design. Anchoring the booth will be an installation of a full-sized hearth, composed of screen-printed tiles. The motifs on each tile take inspiration from traditional Victorian design, and feature intricate compositions of the pillaged crops - tobacco, indigo, sugar, rubber, and tea - at the core of imperial development. Presented as quiet sculptural interventions, this body of work utilizes the subtle language of flowers to examine the roots of the industrial revolution, and who, in turn, is absent from narratives of western economic and cultural growth.
Hannah Secord Wade creates fantastical landscape paintings, populated by fictional creatures, plants, and commonplace objects that are at once familiar yet alien. Working in series that are often dominated by a single hue, she builds and disassembles worlds, akin to theater sets. As the series progresses, her environments become more abstract and unstable - with land that moves, shifts, or disappears as the subjects in the work navigate alternative realities. Bringing a sense of dark humor to our continued political and environmental destabilization, Wade creates hopeful alternatives for her subjects, and open ended experiential quests for her viewers. The works featured in this presentation are from a new series titled - Shrimp World - that is set in a place beyond time, where humans no longer exist.
rocki swiderski manipulates color and form to capture the essence of the arid southwest. Breaking with the tradition of large-scale, pastoral depictions of the desert ‘sublime’, swiderski instead focuses on chance encounters, native species, or seemingly mundane depictions of brush and light, all of which are informed by their deeply spiritual commitment to noticing relationships between the land and its inhabitants. Gesture is at the core of the work, with quick, fluttering brush strokes that render the spikiness of desert foliage in often non-traditional, dream-like tones. Water and animals are common motifs in their work. They appear as drying puddles or dripping hoses - a symbol of longing for resources that lack - whereas the animal protagonists stand as protectors, echoing a sense of calm within a tenuous landscape.