Alise Anderson

Through sculpture, video, and performance Alice Anderson investigates the mundanity and absurdity of ordinary objects. In dialog with a vast array of materials, the artist manipulates and constructs forms which blur definitions of functional and nonfunctional. This dissonance reveals Anderson’s concerns regarding value; how value and purpose might be imposed upon objects through their reconstruction or redefinition, and how objects without purpose often feel meaningless. The conversation of value continues in the artist’s process, which is patient and durational. Each work becomes slowly familiar and important through their formulation, as if uncovering a history. The artist’s history and biography is undeniably associated with the work. The body isn’t visually represented, but suggested, both in how the body participates in fabrication and in how a body relates to the work’s final placement. Themes of trauma, humor, religion, and internet culture emerge as Anderson continues to decode her relationship to a world full of objects. Comedy and sadness are both present in the room.