As I try to make work now – as I attempt to conceive of what making work right now in the present day could even look like – I feel inescapably conscious of the silly thin apparatus mediating many of my interactions; my voyeurism; my disengaged horror with the world. The thin apparatus, allows me witness the thing – doing good and staying informed, and simultaneously fractures the horror – it becomes digestible – and the more I consume (while I still feel) the less I know what to do with what I have just consumed.

Someone’s Home is a meditation on the fractured experience produced by media consumption, the thin apparatus which both separates us from and allows us to witness the atrocities of humankind, and the fracturing of our consciousness and personal accountability – the numbing that take place – within that structure.  

Wessmann’s installation, dim-lit and moody, feels like a space outside of earth. The fractured pieces, blackened amorphous shapes, at first feel otherworldly. Perhaps the space of meteors, inside a black hole, or perhaps the space of the internet. Each fragment is speared by a long vertical, working to suspend the element in space – defying and simultaneously acknowledging gravity’s insistence. When eyes adjust and the pieces can be looked at directly, one notices they are very much indeed of this earth – carved wooden forms, blobby, like a body and not at the same time. Maybe a body missing limbs? Perhaps it is only as limb? What happens to the limbs that get severed or blown off after lifting the wrong can of beans?

Artist Bio

Erica Wessmann, affectionately known as Wessy, is a noodle-like creature who spent over a decade living and working in New York City before moving to Connecticut to complete an MFA in sculpture. Wessy spends their days teaching artists of the future at Wesleyan University, making like a maniac in a gigantic-windowless studio, and rolling around laughing, sobbing and re-learning what this life means with their wild two year old twins. Their work can and will take over any space, large or small, and will inevitably infect the world around it with its playful abundance and serious vision. Their work attempts to create openings where notions of stability are suspended to meaningfully alter the way singular perspective and subjective experience can be understood. Often, their installations bring seemingly disparate research material together into one space along with physically constructed elements to reveal complex coded materials. Wessmann attempts to shift the viewer’s perspective materially, drawing out complex embedded histories within sculptural objects. Wessy is an acute spatial and social observer, can make anything, cares for the community, throws the best parties, requires lots of alone time, and will stun you with their karaoke ability. Wessy was born in the 80s, received a BFA from The Cooper Union in 2007, attended residencies such as Atlantic Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Oxbow, Haystack and Skowhegan, and they completed their MFA at Yale in 2017. They have lectured about their work at UCLA, The Cooper Union and Emerson College, and have taught at CalArts, Yale School of Art, Williams College, Trinity College, University of Madison in Wisconsin, Pratt, and NYU.