erin hall
erin hall
s e p t e m b e r 12 — o c t o b e r
1 0 , 2 0 14
ARTIST’S STATEMENT When an object becomes orphaned, it loses its history. We hold onto material objects for their significance; they hold memories through their continued existence and ownership. That significance could be as simple as what a person finds aesthetically pleasing, or as complex as a piece of family history. But without ownership, an object loses the importance it once held, and becomes a forgotten memory itself. I choose found photographs, postcards, and scraps of writing for their intrinsic effort to hold on to memory and their attempt to exist without ownership. They materialize the ephemeral. Photographs are physical proof of what the owner found aesthetically pleasing or of a specific precious memory. The photographer has specifically curated an image that is, for whatever reason, of importance. Writing cements thoughts that exist in conjunction with specific memory. Even with no ownership, these items cary echoes of their history and continue to exist outside of their context.
As I approach a found object that holds the remains of memories, my interaction with it (cutting, covering, revering, sewing, and discarding) destroys part of its history. Its owners have forgotten it, and I simulate that loss through the destruction of the original object in art making. However, in the creation of the work, new experiences are being created, birthing new context. We, as the audience (myself included) have no insight to the object’s original significance. So, instead I can only highlight its echoes and curate information. In sewing the writing from postcards, I expose the information, but it is difficult to read and obscures the original image. In displaying a woman’s devout patience in writing 2,300 songs, we can experience what she has curated but her persistence is overwhelming. Because memory is a give and take; there is no completely truthful memory. With all new experiences and contexts we bring in, we are only obscuring, warping, and altering what was already there.
ARTIST’S BIO Erin Hall is a Kansas City based artist and graduate from the Kansas City Art Institute in Painting and Art History. Tackling the subject of memory in material and found objects, Hall utilizes personal history and reaction to others’ naratives to create her works.
Front Cover: Mary I G at 504, 82 x 96, 2014 Inside Left: Thanksgiving 1941, 26 x 40.5, 2014 Inside Right Top: Untitled 4, 6 x 8.5, 2013 Inside Right Bottom: Untitled 3, 4 x 6, 2013 Back Cover: Mary IG at 504 (detail), 2014 All images by Erin Hall. Wood, found objects, cotton, thread and photography courtesy of the artist.
In 2012, Hall was the winner of the Lester Goldman Drawing Competition at the Kansas City Art Institute, was interviewed as the Featured Artist for the Northwestern Art Review in Chicago, and participated in the Artist Inc. Live workshop. She has shown in multiple group exhibitions, including the first annual juried show from P&M Artworks titled HOME; Have I Been Here Before? at La Esquina curated by Charlotte Street visiting curator Jamilee Polson Lacy; and the 2012 UrbanSuburban exhibition at the Kansas City Jewish Museum of Contemporary Art, Epsten Gallery.
© 2014 by the Kansas City Artists Coalition. All rights reserved.
Hall has worked as Marketing Director at Edge Wise Sport Supply, taught classes for the Kansas City Art Institute’s School for Continuing Education and Professional Studies, and has taught figure skating at a number of ice arenas over the years. She currently works as Executive Assistant at the Kansas City Artists Coalition.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Support for ARTISTS PAGES has been provided by The Curry Family Foundation, the Francis Families Foundation, Mallin/Gibson Family, ArtsKC Fund, The Missouri Arts Council, a state agency, and the Artists Coalition’s patrons and members.
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