20' x 12' x 10'
Wood, Drywall, Crystals, Paint, Vinyl Siding, television,
For Sale or Lease explores the interaction between architecture and nature through the bisection of a suburban home by a starry night sky. The homes’ flood lights are triggered by the viewer exploring the intersection of night and home. This artificial light combined with the lights from a television within the house’s interior creates the feeling of an already occupied space, leaving the viewer in the position of voyeur.
"For Sale or Lease" explores the viewer's sense of belonging through an interactive sculpture and photographic installation. The full-scale facade of a suburban house bisects the gallery, approachable and familiar in appearance yet closed-off and protected from the viewer. It is a house that invites yet guards, nurturing inside yet securing from the outside. In "For Sale or Lease," the viewer toes the line between public and private property. They approach, peer, linger, and in the end, wonder: are they looking inside....or out?
"The Best-Laid Plans" exists in the space between mankind's accomplishments and failures, dwelling in a moment of ambiguity. Works in the show reflect an evolving history of construction, industrialism, and humans' relationship to nature, with a nod to post-WWII attitudes and morals. Full-size woodblock prints of chipboard and plywood highlight and celebrate the engineering of nature by human hands. Other pieces, such as "Delivery"--an eight-foot long artillery shell haphazardly dropped onto a grassy suburban lawn--are installations of plans gone awry. Viewers are invited to explore the work from an insider's perspective and draw their own conclusions of success and sacrifice.
“Not Here But There” is an exhibition of new photography and sculptural work by Mark Joseph Oliver. The pieces in this show explore the role that location serves as a monument to the past, present, and future. Viewers can experience a distilled moment in time through partially masked black and white photography of Norwegian landscapes and witness a narrative connecting past and present through the installation “Whale Fall:” a completely white boat skeleton resting on the floor of the gallery. The work is solemn yet serene, the palette a simple black and white and the atmosphere one of quiet reflection of something experienced remotely yet fully. The viewer is invited to share in the observation of a location and a history transported. What changes and what remains?
Water, dockwood, pond tarp, grass, pool dye
120’x 24’
Lagoon is a project that is about the transformation of space when bringing the outside world inside. This work takes a normal gallery and transforms it into a dark-watered lagoon. The viewers are invited to take off their shoes and navigate the dark waters. Cold fog rolls out slowly from underneath the dock. As the viewer wades through the water, shimmering reflections cast onto the surrounding gallery walls.
