PAST THINGS / CARLY WEAVER

SOLO SHOW at LINK&PIN APRIL 5-MAY4 2025

Past Things is a reflection on my life at 49 years old. It's a timeline referenced from photos, memories and nostalgia. Iused realism and representational sculpture to project my history on hand made wood panels and silicone molds to render the drawings and plaster casts. Iburned through many 2B pencils and made huge plaster messes everywhere as t u r n e d most every surface in my home and studio into a working space for this show over the past year. Many years of drawing and commission work (which can be viewed on the blue wall) inspired me to embrace the medium for the first time in large format. I feel passionate about drawing as a foundation to all art mediums and many of the panels are challenges like the color pencil piece, 1980, or therapeutic like Crossvine, an ode to a marriage dissolution.

This new work may seem out of context because I am largely known as The Grackle Lady for my large grackle paintings, but Past Things is always the work intended and was always present. In 2022, Mariel Fogel and I created a pinnacle show for both of us, Plastered and Possessed at Cloud Tree Gallery. It was inspirational to work along Mariel and her ceramic installation and a chance to unveil my lifelong goals as an artist to show both painting and sculpture. Past Things is a trajectory from that show.

When a dear artist friend asked me what Iwas trying to communicate by sharing my life experience with Past Things, I was stumped- because I just planned to make all of ti regardless of a show or message. After more reflection and another friend's response after the opening that viewing my work mirrored moving into a new phase in their life, I had my answer. Memories are involuntary,as Proust so expertly narrated in Remembrance of Things Past, which I naively read in its entirety in my twenties, and that experience is seeping out now - sharing my memories is intended as a catalyst for your own self-discovery.

Selected images from show below.