The Votes Are In!
2024 Readers' Choice is back, bigger and better than ever!
View Winners → South Pasadena Arts Council Presents Mary Beth Heffernan – ‘The Quintessence of Dust’
Arts Jun 21, 2017
Mayor Terry Tornek chose to err on the side of caution, opting to seek voter assistance on an issue he described as “fraught with implications and potential … pitfalls.” - Photo by Terry Miller / Beacon Media News
by
share with
The art on display features a large-scale black and white photo gram created with human cremated remains. – Courtesy photo
The South Pasadena Arts Council (SPARC) is pleased to present the exhibition Mary Beth Heffernan – The Quintessence of Dust at SPARC Gallery, located at the South Pasadena Chamber of Commerce on Mission Street. The exhibit opens June 24 and lasts until August 11. Sam Mellon of the South Pasadena curatorial design firm MICRONAUT organized the exhibition.
There will be an artist reception on Saturday, July 22 from 5 – 7 p.m.
“Quintessence of Dust explores bodies in a state of flux, images suspended between one world and the next,” Heffernan writes in her artist statement for the exhibition. It features a large-scale black and white photogram created with human cremated remains. “The tossed ashes are recorded as a negative presence,” the artist states, “the scudding constellation of white dots memorializing its presence on the photographic paper. The celestial illusion is interrupted by the presence of a white disk–a body tag– underscoring the disarmingly literal presence of the body’s remains.”
Heffernan uses camera-less photogram and frottage techniques for their primitive analogue and alchemical qualities. A photogram of cremated remains underscores the element of touch, of physical presence, in making the image. Similarly, rubbings also create a fossil-like trace. Quintessence of Dust presents the body as tangibly present, even as it is poignantly absent.
Mart Beth Heffernan is a Los Angeles-based artist whose work explores the interplay of corporeality and images. She earned her MFA in Photography at the California Institute of the Arts, and was a Studio Fellow of the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York City. Heffernan is currently Professor of Sculpture, Photography and Interdisciplinary Art at Occidental College.
SPARC Gallery is located at 1121 Mission Street, South Pasadena, CA 91030. Gallery Hours are Tuesday – Friday 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. or by appointment.
Please call the chamber office before arriving. (626) 441-2339.
