PRESSURE COOKER
Kate Gonda and Steven James Jackson Meyers
Lane Meyer Projects is pleased to present Pressure Cooker, a two-person exhibition featuring artworks by Kate Gonda and Steven James Jackson Meyers
January 12, 2024 - March 3, 2024
Opening Reception: January 12, 8pm - Late
For Immediate Release:
Lane Meyer Projects is proud to present Pressure Cooker, a two-person exhibition by Denver-based artists Kate Gonda and Steven James Jackson Meyers. With materials ranging from press-on nails to light switch covers, absurdity, systems, and hidden narratives underpin the found material sculptures throughout the exhibition.
Materiality and the associative quality of domestic items take on complex conversations in the conceptually heavy-lifting sculptures of Kate Gonda. In works such as Wheel (2023), dark humor abounds as an ancient stone wheel, reminiscent of early human technological advances, balances atop garish rows of flesh-toned acrylic nails. Here, the weight of innovation and “progress,” benchmarks historically attributed to mankind, is conveniently poised on nail sets indicative of the feminine ideal. Visceral and oddly familiar, Gonda’s works traffic in irony, often containing dual meanings, multiple truths, and devilishly clever cultural critique.
While the kinetic sculptures of Steven James Jackson Meyers may at first seem humorous or trivial as they endlessly perform their small Sisyphean tasks, there is nuance, perhaps even patience, in the gestures of these humble machines. Made from intuitively collected materials from the hardware store such as rulers, lighting fixtures, and magnets, his sculptures work diligently to turn a spigot handle or stretch an extension spring. Tracing back to the artist’s lifelong fascination with mechanics and an enduring penchant for tinkering, these reductive yet oddly endearing works pull at the nylon twine and heartstrings alike.
Simultaneously relatable and bewildering, the sculptures of Kate Gonda and Steven James Jackson Meyers use contrasting aesthetics to create enigmatic sculptures whose meaning is created in the indication of labor. In the case of Gonda, the original function of her found materials is rendered moot, creating tension in the stunted potential of objects. For Meyers, earnest painstaking attempts to create the smallest gestures, sounds, or actions from handyman chic compositions capture subtle poetics of movement. Built within the machinations of late capitalism, Pressure Cooker combines and distills the experience of societal inequality with childlike wonder, impotent utility with reinvention, and gallows humor with genuine curiosity.
Written by Marsha Mack
All purchase inquiries to: lanemeyerprojects@gmail.com
Kate Gonda's conceptual sculpture practice brings together minimal materials with everyday objects to explore the relationship of capitalism and American ideals to human vulnerability and the current societal climate. Her work often incorporates elements of mass production, repetition of shape, humor, and home decor resulting in sculptures that oscillate between satirical and sincere with a touch of absurdity. Gonda received a BFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago and lives and works in Denver, Colorado.
Steven James Jackson Meyers is an interdisciplinary artist working in mixed-media sculpture, ceramic sculpture, and functional pottery with an emphasis on kinetic work. Tinkering with familiar objects, Meyers creates pseudoscience-fair-like projects that masquerade as fine art sculptures. Mechanical movements and sounds reveal the potential beauty of Sisyphian acts, teasing the tense balance between routine and chaos. Puns are his top endorsed skill on LinkedIn, a testament to playfulness in his professional, studio practice and artwork. Meyers earned a BFA in sculpture and pottery from Colorado State University and currently lives and works in Denver, CO.
All photos taken by Erynn McConnell
