High Swoon
High Swoon
June 4 – July 16, 2016
Andrew Rafacz Gallery
Working with a richly colored palette of paracord, Noël Morical creates complex hanging sculptures through the process of macrame. Re-contextualizing a familiar, contemporary material and employing a centuries old weaving technique, she produces objects that relate to the practical and domestic (plant hangers, apparel) but stand as sovereign, otherworldly objects. Unabashedly romantic and personal, each sculpture is a response to the manifested situations in her life. For the artist, hers is a meditative practice. She creates from her lived experience, while addressing nostalgia and the possibilities of ecstasy through escape. For her first exhibition with the gallery, Morical presents an installation of new hanging works, wall works and a living bamboo sculpture that rests in clear plastic drawers stacked as a shelf.
Activating the space as a lived-in environment, the hanging works reference human forms and bodily shapes. Installed asymmetrically and at varying heights, they feel as if they are in conversation, each unique, yet part of a larger group. The artist’s new series of wall works are presented as monochromatic symbolic objects. Made from wood, jute, cotton, and flax yarn, covered in plaster and painted a faint pink, their indexical nature implies an unknown glyphic language. The exhibition’s title High Swoon suggests romantic notions of one being overcome with love and desire, but it also playfully references high noon, the time of day when the sun’s warmth and intensity are building, producing the colors that are referenced in the artist’s work. For the artist, the natural world is a necessary and seemingly boundless reference. The reds and pinks of the rising sun are combined with the lighter, wistful blues and darker indigos of the daytime sky to create her provocative works.