Chels & the City: dis·til·late (noun)

As part of my February Gallery Fest, I started today at Future Tenant with their exhibit Distillate. Although all of the pieces were beautiful in their own right, three of them really took my attention. Rachel Debuque with Tiffany Lee's mixed media piece, Ruby Jane Jones, Morgan Cann's video The Rock and Ashley Andrews' digital photography pieces. Overall, this was a great exhibit to start on - although it ends tomorrow, if you're able to, you should really try to get into Future Tenant to check it out!

First, let's talk about The Rock. This video was weird but beyond interesting. I watched it about three times, the girl at the desk probably thought I was crazy. Anyway, it was for the most part silent except for a few little sounds of movement that you can barely hear since the TV it's playing on is so quiet. But from what I got out of it, it was about this little creature that goes on this journey through the wilderness (probably someone's backyard) and it finds different things but isn't satisfied until it finds a perfectly round rock. For the next couple of minutes the creature is obsessed with this damn rock and eventually takes it back home to a huge (compared to the creature) pile of rocks and then goes back out on the hunt. My interpretation (though probably missing the artist's intent) was that we all become obsessed with certain things and we become so routine in our lives that it's hard for us to even appreciate other things in the world.....we should probably stop doing that. The video also had sparklers in it, which is always an automatic win in my book.

Ashley Andrews' digital photography pieces were almost completely missed because of the little nook of the space they are in, but on my way out I saw them and was blown away. There are six or seven photos, each depicting a different event from June 12, 2011 until November 15, 2011. Which kinda threw me off at first because those dates are the birthday's of my mom and brother, respectively. (I can never remove myself from art.) Each picture showed an event in the time line of a relationship, I'm assuming between the artist and a lover. Although each one was a simple photo of one person, dressed to represent the event and doing what was going on that day, I could not look away from these pictures. Beyond the fact that they are so well developed, styled and designed, each of their titles is a date accompanied with a short description of what happened that day. Ashley Andrews' voice in the descriptions spoke as loudly and beautifully as her pictures. I was floored. And although there is only one more day for this exhibit, you either need to go in and check them out for yourself or track this work down somehow. Those pictures with their descriptions were the most heartbreakingly beautiful pictures I have ever seen. (Yes, I did just make up the word heartbreakingly.)

Finally, my favorite piece of all was a mixed media piece titled Ruby Jane Jones. I'm always won over by mixed media. This piece is a chair with different elements added to it to create it's character. One of it's most beautiful parts is the face, which is represented by a video of a girl who makes a variety of different facial expressions and displays quite a lot of moods very typical to the average woman. (I laughed to myself at a few of them, knowing I give people some of the same expressions.) I could go on about how and why this is one of my favorite pieces, but let's hear from you...what do you love and hate about this piece? How does it make you feel? Why was it made? Is it art? Let me know your thoughts....