on view: Ashley Pridmore
All Things Being Equal; or, Eve Can’t Stop Dreaming About That Goddamn Snake
Ashley Pridmore
On View: December 16, 2022 - April 22, 2023 I Sculpture Garden
Art League Houston (ALH) is proud to present All Things Being Equal; or, Eve Can’t Stop Dreaming About That Goddamn Snake, an installation in the ALH Sculpture Garden by artist Ashley Pridmore, who is based in New Orleans, Louisiana. All Things Being Equal; or, Eve Can’t Stop Dreaming About That Goddamn Snake is a site-responsive installation focusing on creative and destructive forces in the natural world, and loss of home and habitat resulting from events such as floods.
Pridmore describes the concept of the installation as “All Things Being Equal; or, Eve Can’t Stop Dreaming About That Goddamn Snake and a flood has torn through the garden, leaving debris from everywhere smashed against her beloved tree. This flood is the end and the beginning, this flood is just the middle of the story in a world that floods. As the waters move on, they’ve left behind texture and piles of overlapping feelings. Eve’s snakes coil and writhe through the scape, binding everything together, weaving and caressing and entwining. What is knowledge, anyway?”
The artist employs Biblical references to the story of Eve, the snake, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the story of Noah and the great flood, which references her evangelical childhood as well as literary sources such as John Milton’s Paradise Lost. While both of these Bible stories discuss actions and their respective consequences, Pridmore’s installation acknowledges such consequences and chooses to reframe the garden in a new state.
The installation embeds itself into the ALH Sculpture Garden via the site’s pre-existing features, establishing itself as the new native species of the garden. Utilizing both manmade and natural materials in surrealistic ways, Pridmore calls attention to the conflict of human impact on the natural world and nature’s forceful response to that impact. Despite the mark humans have left on the world, nature finds a way to respond and return, with unforeseen adaptations.
Artist will discuss the complex intersections of art, nature, and literature at a public talk on Saturday, 12/17
Immersive outdoor installation for sustained visitor engagement and contemplation
Artist Ashley Pridmore
Image courtesy of the artist
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ashley Pridmore is a mixed-media sculptor who works with found natural objects. Pridmore grew up in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York and now lives in New Orleans, LA. Her work is an exploration of decomposition and recomposition using bones, leaves, branches, shells, quills, teeth, and thorns. Combining man-made ideas with items from the natural world, Pridmore explores the tensions between life and disintegration, sanctuary and peril. These tensions emerge through the creation of hollows, spaces, or barriers - places to hide or to live. Her process has recently begun emphasizing site-specificity. As a maker, Pridmore is constantly trying to push herself in terms of scale, materials, and depth of narrative. She wants her objects to interact visually and physically with their immediate location. It is her goal for the work to have a sense of unity and balance within its environment. This includes considerations of scale, color, supports, and surfaces. The artist’s sculptures carry a distinctive found-object aesthetic and a narrative nature. She believes these characteristics make them interactive and memorable for many different people. Her works are accessible and engaging to a wide audience, inviting the viewer to consider both image and surface to create their own narrative.