COVID-19
Humans haunt after they’re gone, but what about objects? What do they retain once they’ve passed on from their first lives, perhaps onto a fourth? Think about the special heft of an antique dresser, of eating with the silverware inherited from a great-aunt, of sleeping in a building many hundreds of years old, of holding a satchel that survived an earlier war. The sculptures of Carlie Trosclair dabble in this animistic wondering, a natural outcome for the daughter of a New Orleans electrician, who as a child spent more time than most in old residential properties under construction. Buildings are but giant objects, filled with smaller objects, each of them records of lives lived. During quarantine, with shows cancelled and postponed, Trosclair has scaled down her technique of using latex to cast staircases, window frames, even an entire room, opting instead for a fancy old mirror. Hung on invisible wire up against the sky, frayed where its cheesecloth backing has torn, “mirror” is a ghost of ghosts. How many long-gone souls saw their likeness in its glass? What did they see? Reflect on that as the wind flutters the mirror’s once solid form, as the sunlight bursts through its once opaque surface.
—Lori Waxman 2020-09-29 1:36 PM