Reef Series investigates the intersection of ethics and aesthetics. Although intentionally beautiful, the pieces resist cliches.
“The beauty emerges through a transaction between the object and the beholder. To experience beauty is to occupy a position of conflict; to be simultaneously in the grasp of sensual desire and burdened with the knowledge of what it means to act on that desire. As an artist, Rath acts on her own reverence for creatures and materials and she creates a context for our awareness. We must feel an object move us to sensual response; we must feel our moral stances tested, even erased, in the face of their beauty; and we must each examine our own responsibilities for action in the face of Beauty’s experience.”
–Tacey Rosolowski from the Amphiboly catalog
By using corals and sea anemones as inspiration, Rath taps into to the human need to be in the presence of beauty. Many people go to great lengths to view sea anemones and corals in their natural environment, one that is otherwise hostile to human life. This serves as a metaphor for the hostility shown towards the pursuit of unabashed beauty in 20th century art.
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