Monday, February 28, 2011

Opening Day - "Working"















Amber Jean Young may be the closest thing we have to an Artist-in-Residence at Mauve, joining the workforce through a cubicle-centric occupancy of live knitting and video work featuring her process while she's away from her desk. Her work schedule, which began today with fellow workers stopping by to admire, will continue throughout the month:

- 7 pm, Friday March 4th (tour! See below for details)
- 10 am, Friday March 11th
- 10 am, Monday March 14th
- 10 am, Monday March 21st

Do join us for a public tour this Friday, March 4th at 7 pm of Amber Jean at work. Please email us if you're planning on attending.

About the show:
The piece is part performance, part endurance, part video. In 2007 I began knitting throughout the day, as a method of measuring moments of my life. As the months passed the meaning of the piece expanded and became a method of not only marking the passage of time, but an exploration of the repetitive nature of work. I had to put sometimes mind-numbing work into continuing to knit this piece. The piece is always about marking the passage of time, but it became about the challenge of continuing to work on something that has no foreseeable completion date. When I began to think of the piece as “work” I began to consider the fruits of productivity (i.e. stuff getting done) as evidence of being alive, no matter how mundane.

About the artist:
Amber Jean’s artwork often explores interpersonal and familial relationships, memories, nostalgia, and personal history. She is interested in the circumstances where she believes people should feel psychologically and emotionally safe, and where that security exists in reality. Amber Jean’s work investigates coping mechanisms, and the complicated emotions caused by loving others. The work engages the relationship between fantasy and longing as well as an emotional and psychological haunting. Amber Jean disguises loaded topics in a cute presentation. Her work exposes the juxtaposition of serious and silly, complicated and simple, sad and cute.

For more information about Amber Jean, visit: amberjeanyoung.com

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