Heidi Kumao: "Surviving Confinement" solo show in NYC

“Surviving Confinement: Video Sculpture”
On view Sept. 2-27, 2014
Opening reception Thursday, Sept. 4, 6-8 pm

Three works about surviving physical confinement are each inspired by the experiences of individual women including: a college student living under an authoritarian government, a Japanese-American girl relocated to a WWII internment camp, and the artist herself-constrained for months in a clamshell back brace. In each piece, Kumao interweaves video, photos, animation, and sound into a surreal journey that is anchored within a compelling narrative. She transforms everyday objects through mapped video in which real objects and shadows interact with shadows from non-existent objects, creating an uncanny dichotomy for the viewer to resolve.

In “Egress,” a stack of books becomes a portal to another room, then a police inspection area, and then an entire apartment tower. Similarly in “Transplant,” the projection transforms an interned prisoner’s ID tag into a gardener’s seedling, a guard tower, and an American flag. Kumao’s single channel video, “Swallowed Whole,” uses repeated vertical frame-rolls from analog TV to metaphorically replay the impact that literally broke her back. Bone-crushing sounds and jarring movement echo throughout the film as a window of empathy into PTSD repetition compulsion.

Heidi Kumao has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions in the USA, Brazil, Argentina, Spain and Canada. Recent group exhibitions include: “Enticing Luminosity” at Lesley Heller Workspace (NYC) and “Currents 2014: The Santa Fe International New Media Festival.” She has received support from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Creative Capital Foundation and her work has been reviewed in Artpapers, Artforum and Sculpture Magazine. She is an associate professor at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her work will be featured in “Dlectricity 2014,” Detroit’s Nighttime Exhibition of Art & Light, September 26-27, 2014.

www.heidikumao.net

For more information please contact:
Stefany Benson, Director
Ceres Gallery
[email protected]
ceresgallery.org


Tues-Sat 12-6 pm (Thurs 8 pm)