Exhibition | Sarah Lindley: “Exit Allegan,” DePree Art Center and Gallery

The following is a statement from Michigan-based artist Sarah Lindley regarding her January exhibition Exit Allegan at the DePree Art Center and Gallery in Holland, Michigan. Lindley is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Kalamazoo College, where she has been teaching sculpture and ceramics since 2001.

This work is generated in response to the pull of place, a desire to understand the landscape of my surroundings and that which is concealed beneath the surface. Exit Allegan is comprised of a series of sculptures based on the sediment, floodplains and paper mill industry along the Kalamazoo River in Allegan County, MI and references multiple Superfund clean-up sites. The river itself was integral to the foundation and past prosperity of the small communities in the area and later became the victim of gross contamination by many of the area paper mills during the 20th century. Although most of the industry has since departed, the legacy of its dumping is renewed with each thaw and flood and through generations of wildlife.

My renditions of architecture and shifting sediment are constructed from clay bodies that have been saturated with stains and oxides. The material takes on an ambiguous color and surface that connects as much to industrial materials like iron as to the organic sludge and sediment it represents. Referencing topographical maps, aerial photographs and city records, I follow the natural evolution of architecture and terrain. The same linear elements that make up the structure of the mills, are stretched, rolled, manipulated and layered for the river. The final loose and open structure exists in a brittle vitrified state. This tension reflects my private perception of public place; it emulates force and fragility, power and passivity, intimacy and isolation.

Above image: Installation view of Sarah Lindley’s Exit Allegan exhibition at DePree Art Center and Gallery, 2014.

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