COVID-19
In Reverse Prophecies, her recently re-opened solo show at 65Grand in Chicago, Heather Mekkelson shows great tenderness toward material remains both human and arboreal. With meticulous and unusual use of epoxy clay, salvaged timber, foam-covered fabric, metal alloy, cement and more, she has created four distinct series, each of which looks from afar like a handsome piece of modernist abstract sculpture. Close inspection reveals individual meditations on what gets left behind: soap bar slivers, tree rings, genes, primitive mark-making. It’s also aesthetically exciting to examine Mekkelson’s sculptural experimentation, especially her delicate replacement of individual tree lines with a silvery substance that recalls kintsugi, the Japanese technique for fixing broken pottery with gold-dusted laminate. Ruination is thereby memorialized rather than being merely erased, as is the more typically American way.
—Lori Waxman 2020-07-08 3:49 PM