Wave Hill
Sunroom Project Space
West 249th Street and Independence Avenue (front gate)
Bronx, NY 10471-2899
Telephone:718.549.3200
Audrey Hasen Russell takes a cue from the landscape visible from the Sunroom’s windows with Slant Branch Souvenir (Thinkin’ on You), a large-scale installation. Comprised of three sculptural components, these works combine to collectively register the rolling hillside and woodlands that make up the room’s distinctive views. In one corner, a leaning plywood structure upholstered in mustard-colored fleece that stands in for gently sloping wedge of topography is embedded with green glass and white twigs that resemble indeterminate organic growth. An arch made with sticks has the look of a young sapling, while a clutch of glasswork stationed nearby captures the microcosmic intimacy of a flower garden.
Russell’s work is also informed by childhood memories of a family farm in the Appalachian foothills of east Tennessee. Consequently, she chooses familiar materials that reference a distant nostalgic notion of the bygone, such as fleece and Depression-era glassware. At the same time, she resists a literal depiction of the imagery of her personal history. A heavy beam and an antique window pane possess a barn-like aesthetic, but they also suggest a tree trunk and a jutting precipice. By deftly navigating this boundary between representation and abstraction, Russell delves into the slippery nature of memory itself, and speaks to the persistent impulse to idealize days gone by. The resulting work is suffused with emotional resonance, provoking narratives of both comfort and loss.
