New work in sugar and salt by Katie Stubblefield

September 17 – October 14, 2005

images from Lick

Walled City is proud to present Lick, a solo exhibition of new works by Long Beach artist Katie Stubblefield.  Stubblefield, has made a name for herself via her prowess in bringing different media and materials into play as she creates her installations and paintings. Katie’s experimental nature is on full display in Lick.  By choosing to work in the primal materials of sugar and salt on sheet aluminum, a process is begun of drying and crystallizing, moving and growing, a process where the artist wrestles with materials that refuse to be organised.  Incidental rust, pollen, insect remains and other normally unnoticed environmental materials make their way into the otherwise monochromatic works, their presence becoming landmark upon the eerie, crystal landscape of Katie’s work.  As layers accumulate, the stark aluminum beneath is obscured, and a ghost world emerges, evoking fantasies of far off glaciers and the unknown.

Salt and sugar, as the bearers of raw sensations, serve as symbols and reminders of opposing pleasures.  In their reaction, to each other, and to the air and materials around them, unintended structures emerge, the product of unseen chemical forces, indicative of the life sustaining properties of these base materials.  Despite the monochromatic nature of these works, there is a kind of life there, its motions unseen, but its effects are seen.  Salt licking salt, sugar licking sugar…