Ashley Cook
April 10, 2023
On March 11, Belle Isle Viewing Room hosted its second dual opening event with the work of Yeager Edwards greeting visitors who then traverse the space into B. Scoba’s exhibition before taking a moment to reflect on these two artists who were selected to exhibit side by side. Each of their relatively youthful perspectives may be considered to be influential in their shared sentimentality towards memory. The exhibition texts reveal that Edwards used various textiles from personal experiences to produce the substantial soft sculptures in daydreamt, and that the small ceramic works by Scoba convey an appreciation for a particular family heirloom. Taking time with these bodies of work can satisfy an often repressed need to let our minds wander into the depths to recall random details and make strange connections for no other reason but to play.
Work by work, subtleties emerge with close encounters the way one may learn how to interact with an actual person. Perfection takes second place to any expression that makes room for tenderness and self actualization. This by no means implies that the works are not made with care though; specific details are weaved together in ways that are so loosely suggestive that they act almost as windows to another world. Their abstraction is infused with symbols and intimate impressions that somehow work in tandem to hum a gentle tune as we float in observation in an attempt to understand them.
Yeager Edwards’ daydreamt comprises three large-scale soft sculptures that participate in contemporary conversations that aesthetically evoke artists like Cosima Von Bonin or Yayoi Kusama in a way quite similar to the Swiss artist Thomas Liu Le Lann. Edwards recognizes their own work to be explorations of “joy, longing, and the inherent value in used textiles”1, re-considering the concept of waste in relation to personal experience to re-imagine and re-present scenes of sweet nostalgia. Likewise, Liu Le Lann often notes the relevance of “life experience, play, subversion and autofiction”2 in his work with forms and figures comparable to those found in these works of Edwards. Both share an affection towards industrial forms and a particular dismissal of them through an alteration in scale, texture, pattern and context. They become as vulnerable as the bodies they confine, which can be found resting freely, yet seemingly exhausted, in the corner.
This work is supported linguistically by local playwright will street in the poem notes from a guy who tried to pick the lock, which again confirms a volatile relationship with industrial domesticity that oscillates between agitation and reverence. The psychological impact of overarching structure is a common theme between both exhibitions in addition to the aforementioned presence of intimate memories and sentiment. While B. Scoba is an artist who works between disciplines, exploring “belief systems”, “material obsolescence” and “elusive memory”3 to examine their role in the concept of self identity, they do so in a way that mirrors tools and constructions that make up our modern world. Their grandmother’s shadowbox serves as the model for the creation of 28 objects that combine ceramic with personal ephemera. The playfulness of decision making looks over to Miho Dohi and throws back to Richard Tuttle; as a kid who grew up in the 90s, I thought of Polly Pocket.
These tiny worlds have compartments that seem to serve a purpose, trapping our curiosity and bouncing it from ceramic wall to ceramic wall before it leaves through the small hole in the side and enters the next place. A sort of automatism may have been employed while making the work that is now employed while interpreting it and it wouldn’t be a surprise if similar translations emerged from person to person as many of the elements visually connect while remaining refreshingly devoid of specific definition or meaning. Objects and patterns familiar to us in the world outside of art, yet completely unconventional within the world of art, meets perfectly acceptable art world mediums to gently threaten the concept of material hierarchy.
It could be interesting to note that both B. Scoba and Yeager Edwards hold day-jobs within the business side of the art world. Yeager Edwards actually functions as the manager of Belle Isle Viewing Room, balancing this with his work at Pence Fine Art Services building physical structures for the production, exhibition, shipping and handling of art. B. Scoba also maintains a position as a preparator for both the gallery and Pence Fine Art Services. Poetry aside, their practical experience with structure and logistics related to art probably influences their studio practices. Their enhanced awareness of the details of this world promote conscious self-references that can straddle between sincerity and parody. In fact, so many artists hold positions as assistants and it seems so obvious, but for some reason it feels like a nice thing to consider because somehow it can be reflected in the work in a way that makes things more meta for everyone. Thank you for that.
These two solo exhibitions by Yeager Edwards and B. Scoba are on view at Belle Isle Viewing Room until April 15, 2023
Photos by Ashley Cook
1. Pence Fine Art Services, March 2023
2. Xippas. “Thomas Liu Le Lann.” Xippas. Accessed April 9, 2023. https://www.xippas.com/artists/thomas-liu-le-lann/.
3. Pence Fine Art Services, March 2023