Laini Nemett: When We Lived Here

August 26th – December 3rd, 2017

Curated by Julie Lohnes, Curator of Art Collections & Exhibitions

Laini Nemett, 3215 St. Claude, 2017, oil on Dura-Lar, 40 x 25 inches

Artist Laini Nemett works with cardboard models, collage, and large-scale oil paintings to create architectural environments that explore the idea of home in the exhibition, When We Lived Here. Nemett describes her work as a response to, “personal histories as recalled by the buildings that house them…I collage and collapse planes to conjure the passing of time and the generations of lives lived between the aging walls.”

Interlacing building elements from her travels, on-location image research, and field studies, Nemett’s works evoke a sense of nostalgia and moments of recognition for the audience. Throughout her work, the contrast between handmade and machine-made is constant. From steel girders to hand-laid bricks, drywall sheets in refuse piles to concrete stairways leading to nowhere, each of the scenes depicted represent locations that hold different emotional weights for each viewer: some places we might have lived in, other places we might have passed by without acknowledgment.

Anarchitecture principles and ideals are recalled through the manner in which Nemett highlights the structures as anonymous, deconstructs the idea of a singular location, and splices together the narratives and histories with the physical elements and markers of structure. The artist forges new ground and explanations of how, why, where, when, and who interacts with buildings and the spaces they inhabit.

– Excerpts from catalogue forward by Aaron Levi Garvey

Co-sponsorship for this exhibition has been generously provided by the Department of Visual Arts.