Madison Vander Ark
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Since the pandemic, the unchanging landscape of suburbia has inadvertently crept into Madison's new work. “Secret Garden” harkens back to memories of the artist's childhood: grassy lawns, pools at dusk, make-shift pillow forts, playing “dress up,” or the feeling of submerging into a pile of blankets on an unkempt bed. By warping these otherwise familiar subjects, uncanniness pervades the scene. The art objects and “moonlit” space become projection sites for imagined narratives: portals into the routine yet otherworldly. Each piece in the installation functions autonomously, but is strengthened by the presence of the others. The work and their viewers are connected by the deep, dark, walls of the “cave.”
UNITED STATES | PAINTER
Madison Vander Ark is a painter and installation artist who grew up in Central Pennsylvania, where she gained an appreciation for the industrial architecture that permeates the landscape. Using these underappreciated structures and spaces as her subject, she studied both sculpture and painting at Messiah College until 2016. Madison spent her time in Philadelphia, Oregon, and France, painting the various landscapes she encountered. Pursuing her MFA in Painting at Boston University, she continued to paint and spent a week at Anderson Ranch in 2018. Madison looks forward to making work in Paris, France this upcoming year after receiving the Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship.
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In “Secret Garden,” I wanted to create an encounter for the viewer that allows the mind to wander and questions what we know to be true.
Throughout the installation, transparent fabric functions as a veil between experiencer and art object.
The liminal space of “passing through” is a continuous theme, represented by a painted sidewalk intended to guide you from one place to the next, a curtain covering the mouth of a cave, or stitches only meant to last for a number of weeks but are now cast in resin forever.
The uneasiness of betraying the knowable permeates the night-time garden, as the cool, dark concealed space invites you deeper into the cave.
Dress(ed) Up: Hood, hydrostone, recycled cotton sheets, 18 x 15 x 11 inches
(Cata) Cave; Cave, wood, recycled cotton sheets, hydrostone, foam, resin, organza, sand; 80 x 48 x 31 inches
Curated collection of summer objects, resin, clay, spray paint, plastic finger-nails, surgical stitches, salt, assorted sizes
Diving pool, oil on canvas, 72 x 24 inches
Dusk encounter, oil on linen; 18 x 24 inches
The Process: Madison Vander Ark
My work is deeply connected to the personal encounter with place and the isolation yet comfort of being inside one's head. I have spent the past few months confronting both personal and observed attitudes of inertia and indifference in my new suburban environment through an investigation of materials, touch, and my own breathing body. The process of making has had greater significance than the final products, hence I decided to combine all the work in one final installation.
To Know the Dark by Wendell Berry
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
And find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
And is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
