Inside the Artist’s Studio
December 3, 2021 - January 22, 2022
An exhibition pairing visual artists and photographers to give a glimpse into the artist’s studio and process. The artist I was paired with was Meesha Goldberg, a Charlottesville-based artist and poet. The photographs below capture Meesha in her studio and bring to life the masks she made as a part of the exhibition.
“Living on a farm bordered by forest, I’ve thought a lot about what separates the wilderness from civilization. What can be accessed in our own nature through intimacy with the wild? Can humanity return from its exile? In this series of white pencil drawings on hide-like paper, sliced through and stitched together, I explore the archetypes of the deer as wild creature, horse as hybrid animal, and human as domesticated/domesticator. Inspired by my life among the animals, these maps of animal consciousness express a fluid vision of their worlds as they intersect with my longing for communion. In addition to two large drawings, I've created three animal masks whose form expresses communion with our animal kin, and the possibility of accessing our primal instinct for survival in this sixth mass extinction.”
- Meesha Goldberg
“When you view Meesha’s work you can sense that there’s something alive within each piece. Meesha does an extraordinary job of expressing both physical and mental landscapes where our notions of reality are transfigured or expanded. I believe that her ability to do this stems from the connection to the land that she lives on and creates in. Her studio space is the forests and fields that Mother Earth has cultivated and crafted. Even when she works inside at a table or at her easel, wide picture windows and warm wooden walls keep her close to the outdoors.
With use of double and triple exposures on medium format film as well as digital photography, I documented Meesha in her studio and created a liminal space inspired by her deer mask. These photographs question the boundary between humans and other animals. They are an example of what could happen if we were to don the likeness of an animal and inhabit its mind. They show that if we are patient enough we can hear Mother Nature speak to us through echoes and apparitions. With enough exploration of this boundary, we can return to what is primal and instinctual within us.”
- Kori Price
Exhibition Photographs, courtesy of Derrick J. Waller: