“At Bay” considers the horizontal viewpoint of a bedridden figure; a forced horizontality. It’s a frustrated, anesthetized sight. A sight that privileges the image plane of ceiling panels hovering parallel above her head, or the eye of the lamp glaring down at her. A tilted neck reveals sock-tipped toes, and the sun rises and sets peripherally in the bedside window. Curtains meant to shield her body hang like sterile ghosts, with inevitable, anxious gaps between them. Their long figures seem to taunt her earthbound axis.
From this viewpoint, it is necessary to leave the outline of your body. You invent, layer and fold images in on themselves until they become almost entirely muted or disappeared. You join the dancing figures in the pastel-colored print on the wall, peek over the curtain to the bed next door, and descend to dress your bandages. You prod your collarbone and lick your hair back from your face. Hovered now nose-to-nose with yourself; at bay.
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Ellie Hunter was born in San Francisco, CA in 1989. She received her MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University (2017), where she was the recipient of the VCU Graduate Thesis Grant. She is currently in residence at Superdeals in Brussels, and has participated in residencies at Interstate Projects (New York), Rupert (Vilnius), and Ox-Bow (Michigan). Recently, she wrote and illustrated a short story, Princess, that was released with Publication Studio SF. Hunter has recently exhibited at Mascot Studios (San Francisco), Good Enough (Atlanta), PEACH (Rotterdam),and Vox Populi (Philadelphia). Upcoming exhibitions include a solo show at Superdeals (Brusels), a two-person show at Bass & Reiner (San Francisco), and an installation with My Mountain, organized by Alexandra Noel & Naoki Sutter-Shudo (Los Angeles). Hunter is the co-founder of The Sunroom, a gallery and publishing platform currently based between Richmond, VA and NYC.
Editorial program is partially supported by LR Ministry of Culture, Lithuanian Council for Culture, Vilnius Municipality
Ellie Hunter
At Bay
Venue: Editorial, Vilnius
24 11 2018 – 24 12 2018
Photography: Laurynas Skeisgiela
Performance: Ellie Hunter, Anni Puolakka; Score by Miša Skalskis.
You relax, you put your body parallel to mine, you rest it on sterile textile. Your breath stinks. You want to kiss me. We kiss and the smell is totally there. It mixes with my hot saliva through the tender, warm movements of our mouths, like pollution blending with a setting, round sun. Let’s go to a place called sunset in a polluted city. Let’s go to the bay. Together the sun and the pollution create a breathtaking orange…. and our cells renew until they don’t.