"Pareidolia" | Shawne Major

Callan Contemporary

518 Julia Street

August 1, 2018 - August 27, 2018

Press Release

Complex, visually sumptuous, and conceptually rich, Shawne Major’s hand-sewn mixed-media assemblages/drawings offer a striking critique of our object-obsessed culture. They inhabit the province of accumulations, surplus, and overflow—baroquely ornate yet deeply skeptical of the Western conflation of material goods with moral or spiritual transcendence. With a fastidious attention to detail, Major creates tapestry-like tableaux from a panoply of disparate materials, among them costume jewelry, fabrics, plastic toys, ribbon, rope, shoelaces, shells, zippers, and

Frisbees. She sews these media into substrates that have symbolically allusive associations—window screens, bridesmaids dresses, prom dresses—infusing the compositions with myriad layers of meaning. The metallic and faceted elements in some pieces catch the light and involve viewers directly in the works’ visual seduction. “I am interested in how people create their perspectives and filters for understanding their realities,” she remarks. “What do we value as humans and Westerners? The reflective surfaces bring the viewer into that dialogue.”

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