Solo Exhibitions
Organic Matter
Pratt Photography Gallery
200 Willoughby Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11205
April 1 — April 5, 2024
Organic Matter operates on a basis of understanding that the strength in connection resides in the fact that it is ultimately temporary. The idea is that to honor the truth of fleeting moments, we must understand the power that is held in each moment’s ephemerality - an ephemerality granted by nature’s inherent basics of life. To take that moment and make a life (in a personal sense) out of it is something that moves beyond the allowances of nature and becomes entirely human. The act of experiencing moments one at a time, creating memories of them, and revisiting those memories is a process that imbues our human, nature-granted right to life with a specifically human experience.
Nature and its subsequent notions of death, birth, physicality, and form combine with the mankind-ification of pleasure through electronic music, light, community, and freedom in this work. Together they create a landscape of humanity that understands universal emotion, and it’s within that landscape that I have chosen to make a home for my memories.
In this presentation of the work, Organic Matter revolves around ‘Overgrowth,' a central tendril that has "grown" from the floor of the gallery — meant to mirror the theme of landscapes manifesting themselves out of Gutoskey's memories. The sculpture represents the understanding that even in the present gallery space, the process of time passing and nature overtaking a memory has already begun. The central formation has begun to grow and harden, and one day the exhibition will exist only in a landscaped memory, just as the images do. As the viewer moves around the space, two lights dance inside the tendril as mirrors flash reflections of both the gallery lighting and Gutoskey’s own images back to the viewer. The exhibition was designed to keep both the viewer’s eye and body moving around the space, combining cycle and rhythm to mimic unity found on the dance floor.