Future: Arcadia
Located in the historic Butler Center for Arkansas Studies in Little Rock, Arkansas, Future: Arcadia is a temporary, site-specific work installed in a mysterious old vault in the center of the Concordia Gallery.
The porcelain components in Future: Arcadia are hundreds of hydrangea flowers, pruned, collected, carefully dipped in liquid porcelain, and fired to create delicate fossils. The various layers of slip and glaze serve to abstract and de-familiarize the once recognizable flowers, stripping them of their nostalgic and romantic connotations. Collectively, the sculptures evoke a dark garden as their shadowy foliage hovers, while yellow forms reclaim the fractured asphalt terrain below. The overall scene conjures a landscape both enchanting and contaminated.