Holy Water 2008
Renee Ickes has created a sculptural installation consisting of a three-dimensional diorama into which one can glimpse an invented landscape or perhaps more accurately...
Description
Renee Ickes has created a sculptural installation consisting of a three-dimensional diorama into which one can glimpse an invented landscape (or, perhaps more accurately, dreamscape). Inside a mirrored bathroom cabinet located above a running sink, Ickes placed an angst-filled female sculptural figue emerging from an expansive blue ocean holding a garland with arms outstretched. Inspired by Dadaist Marcel Duchamp, the sink pays homage to Fountain (1917), a urinal Duchamp famously placed on a wall and called art, while the diorama itself evokes his long-term, controversial work Etant Donnés (1946-66). For the viewer keen enough to open the mirror and look inside, the installation evokes an experience that is, in the artist’s words, “sublime, terrifying, and able to transform the nature of how we understand reality.”
Curated by Heather Pesanti
Renee Ickes is a visual artist and, with Eric Stern, co-owner of the Brillobox, a bar and creative venue for music, performing, and other artistic events. With melancholy and macabre undertones, her paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations present alternate worlds where time is compressed and dreams and reality poignantly intermix.