WORK by TRISHA GUM, JULIETTE OKEN, BERNIE SALE,
LAUREN SCHUPPE, KC SKINNER, and TAYLOR TSCHIDER

CURATED by LEIA CASEY, AUDREY PENVEN, GILPIN MATTHEWS,
and MEGAN SEMPLE (2007 Participants in Mission 17’s Curatorial Internship Program)

Physically, our bodies are constantly changing. They grow stronger with exercise, and weaker with exhaustion—all the while undergoing a gradual decline in vitality as we age. Other changes we consciously inflict upon ourselves: we change the color of our hair, get new tattoos; or, with plastic surgery, change the shapes of our faces. And still other physical changes exist only in our imaginations, or perhaps in the future: sewing together body parts, transforming arms into guitars.

Evolution of Atrophy explored all of these changes: the purposeful, the fantastical, and the inevitable. What happens during transformations and, specifically, at that instant when we know a change has taken place? How do we cope with transitions, which disconnect us from the past and leave us uncertain about the future? And how do we manifest, or otherwise suffer these changes, physically.

The exhibition presented works of sculpture and mixed media that examine the complexities of the ever-changing human form. Lauren Schuppe’s and Bernie
Sale’s almost biological studies focus on what exists in our body but we cannot see. Trisha Gum’s mixed media pieces depict characters coping with the limitations of the body. And Taylor Tschider, KC Skinner, and Juliette Oken create works that seem to insist that there will be no deterioration, no atrophy—instead only fantastical metamorphoses.