Opening Reception - June 10, 2023, 2-5pm
Artist Talk and Tour - August 5, 2023, 1-3pm
Registration Required
What footprint will our garbage and discarded plastics leave in a future geologic era?
Sarah Elise Hall’s work engages with this question, evoking fossilized records from the past while imagining the future.
Hall’s studio practice involves the collection of recycled and discarded plastic containers, revived as ready-made moulds. She produces multiple casts that present themselves as relief sculptures. The casts, which she refer to as Slabs, replicate the subtle industrial contours of the plastic waste they are derived from, and are punctuated by instances of erosion. This is achieved through an organic casting method, and choices of constituent material (pigment, marble dust, binder).
Hall’s pigment selection reflects the natural mineral colours found in earthly materials such as coal, marble, sulphur and lapis lazuli. Both pigment and embedded sites of erosion allude to the earth’s mineral layers and its geologic record. They propose a future scenario about our environment and the kind of trace-evidence that will remain after a prolonged period of plastic waste. It is conceivable that disposable, non-biodegradable containers will fossilize over time, creating strange geological forms in the shapes of industrial mass-production.
Until recently, Hall’s work has largely consisted of wall-mounted relief sculpture in the format of sequences and grids. These works combined shapes of Minimalism with gestures of Abstract Expressionism. As Artspace’s 2022 Artist in Residence, Hall began experimenting with vertical, floor-based work, creating a series of large-scale drawings and maquettes that led to full-scale sculpture, the goal of which was exploration of the visual impact of a vertical format while considering the conceptual and aesthetic potential of repetition in my work.
Stack, 2021, marble, porcelain powder, dry pigment, eco resin, 20.5”x16.5”x32”.
Artist Bio
Born in Toronto, Canada, Sarah Elise Hall is currently a Peterborough-based artist. Hall received a BFA in studio art from OCAD University in Toronto and an MFA in sculpture from the New York Academy of Art in New York City. Her work has been included in national and international exhibitions as well as private and corporate collections. Selected solo and group exhibitions include shows with Christie Contemporary, Toronto, Gray Contemporary, Houston, Arishon + Murphy, NYC, ChaShaMa, NYC, Los Ojos, Brooklyn, NY, Janinebean Gallery, Berlin, and the Drabinsky Gallery, Toronto. Hall has participated in UNTITLED Art, Miami, Art Toronto and Papier in Montreal. Her list of residencies and awards include Artist-in-Residence at the Carriage House, Islip Art Museum, in Long Island New York ((with stipend), Artist in Residence at Urbanfuse, Berlin, an International Travel Grant and a Research & Creation Grant (Canada Council for the Arts), a Mid-career Grant (Ontario Arts Council), and a Grant for Individual Artists from EC3. Her work has been reviewed in Hyperallergic in NYC, The National Post in Toronto, the Huffington Post in NYC, the Toronto Star, and included in Michael Petry’s book Nature Morte: Contemporary Artists Reinvigorate the Still Life Tradition, Pg 238, published by Thames & Hudson Press, NYC.