| Artist Statement
Cold Comfort is a collaborative installation by Canadian artists Michael Caines and Leah Decter. It draws on Cainesf continuing examinations of vulnerability as a human condition; coping with, disguising, exposing, and avoiding it; and Decterfs explorations that are rooted in intersections of memory, history and social/political issues both local and global.
This collaboration is a synthesis of Decterfs sculpture and installation practice, in which materials and processes constitute integral conceptual components, and Cainesf drawings, paintings and films that slide between whimsy and treachery. Cold Comfort grows out of previous work by both Decter and Caines in which the familiar is betrayed by transgressions that peel back layers of convention, and expose vulnerabilities.
Intended to refer to notions of risk and security with both emotional and socio-political resonance, Cold Comfort consists of sculptural components comprised of cast lead objects and over 2000 pieces of felted wool. The labor inherent in Cold Comfortfs construction is manifested in its structure; the layering of felt alludes to the passage of time, accumulation and a deliberate process. The sense of dominance and authority implied by the towering vertical components is in constant dialogue with the intimacy of their human scale and the soft, tactile nature of the felt from which they are constructed.
As much as these stacks appear upright and stable, they betray a palpable essence of vulnerability. They can be read as towers, a symbol that has come to represent both assumptions of superiority and illusions of safety.
Cold Comfort offers a contemplative environment for the viewer who enters, a visceral refuge that is nonetheless fraught with contradictions. |
