Heather Cantrell – Century's
End
October 21 – November 22, 2006
Reception: Saturday, October 21 from 6-9pm
This October sixspace is pleased to present Century's
End - the first solo exhibition at the gallery
by Los Angeles artist Heather Cantrell.
 Throughout
her photographic work, in series such as The Extended
Family, Corpus Battaglia, Head Hunters, and Zombies,
Heather Cantrell has continuously explored issues of family,
tribes, cults, subcultures, and the historical (both worldly
and personal) as a way to parallel metaphors with states of
realism and folklore. Influenced by the portraits, photography,
and painting at the end of the 19th century, she continues
her exploration in Century's End by utilizing staged
scenes of her "community" (mainly artist friends,
mentors, and musicians) to create a body of work that deals
with the polarities of fact and fable.
In Century's End, Heather Cantrell constructs individual
scenarios and uses theatrical staging devices (a back-drop,
costumes, props) so that each portrait tells a story that
“resembles a spiritualistic vessel of external voices
of past centuries" - in this case, the 19th century.
By utilizing these devices, Cantrell simultaneously allows
the subject to be obscured in a fiction inspired by the past
while the fact of their own personality remains firmly in
the present. With an ongoing interest in the occult, she takes
punctuates encounters of the era with shadowy images of carnival
creatures, assembled spirits, and mortal coils.
Heather Cantrell (born 1972 Louisville, Kentucky, lives Los
Angeles) received her MFA from UCLA in 2001 and her BFA from
the Maryland Institute, College of Art in 1995. Recent exhibitions
include the touring museum exhibition Likeness: Portraits
of Artists by Other Artists curated by Matthew Higgs
(Cantrell’s Siren is featured on catalog cover)
and the solo show Extended Family at Newman Popiashvili
Gallery in New York. She has exhibited her work in cities
such as Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and Stuttgart, Germany.
Reviews of her work have been published in New York Times,
Los Angeles Times, Frieze, Index, and Wired Magazine. Century's
End marks Cantrell's first solo exhibition with sixspace.
Click here to see images from the exhibition.
16 Page B/W catalog published in conjunction with the Century's
End exhibition by Heather Cantrell, edition of 150. Includes
all photos from exhibition. Published by sixspace. $16 including
shipping.
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