Relics - Jennifer Gunlock

Hatheway Curatorial is pleased to present an exhibition of works by Jennifer Gunlock. In her words:


My work demonstrates a fascination with the relationships between things of nature and those of human imposition.  With the layering of photographic imagery I have collected on my travels, I construct tree-based figures whose bodies are awkwardly fused with metal gates, antennas, and other architectural motifs.

Each of these tree-forms is an ancient, sentient thing whose lifespan evokes the rise of fall of civilizations and the forests they occupied.  A people enters a forest, clears it, and builds upon it.  The village grows into a mighty city, perhaps an empire, and eventually, inevitably, the people abandons its city, and the civilization dies.  As their great monuments crumble into ruin, the forest slowly encroaches and reclaims its right for dominance.  The ancient trees and ruin bump up and press against each other, causing tension and ultimately fusion.  The result is a forest of hybrid beings comprised of metal, stone and branch.

Two major themes pervade this body of work. One is the imposition of civilization and technology onto nature and nature’s determination to thrive in spite of that imposition. What ends up happening is this push/pull relationship between the two elements and their fight for dominance. Another theme occurring is that these “sleeping” trees are actively communicating, using human invented implements that were nailed/impaled/welded onto them. Motifs of camouflaged cell phone towers and TV antennas are evident, which speak of invisible transmission of information. These trees are both listening and broadcasting without any human’s awareness of this ongoing activity.

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