My sculptures emerge from a sustained investigation into modernist sculptural history and process-based practice. Wall-mounted works constructed from reclaimed objects refigured or powder-coated steel and reduced to their structural logic, my work occupies the space between object, body and architecture. I place the work in deliberate questionable positions or asymmetry to create tension; their placements or in the case of the newest wall works, hang with warped geometries and protruding pipe elements to signal a body and system under stress.
Central to my work is a parallel between pressure of object under stress and then body after an event, as reflections of contemporary human communication. This resonates with Byung-Chul Han's diagnosis in The Burnout Society, where modern life is understood as a condition of self-inflicted exhaustion and a culture that has mistaken relentless productivity for meaning. The fragile, provisional objects, sometimes with readymade objects or heavy materials such as cement, become physical registers of this condition. I construct materials and assemble with porous attention to time, passed eras, and accumulated residue, where the work undergoes a system of reconstruction. Broken apart, reassembled, mutated across different periods, I force insisting the sculpture on duration and return to time, as acts of resistance against hyperactivity and erasure. I consider time, wind, electricity, for example, as important a material to my work, as say, cement or steel.
What can a machine-based hierarchy or a "perfect object culture", offer back to the humbled human form in a time of Artificial Intelligence and machine replaced production? My work continues to probe sculptural history, political power structures, and the consequences of inventions that destabilize the object. In their tilt or refusal to resolve, the work models a quiet, structural resistance.
Caitlin Slegr Ross (b. Slegr/ b. 1981, Los Angeles, CA) is a Czech / American living in Los Angeles. Caiti received her MFA in sculpture from Milton Avery School of Art, Bard College (2017), where she also received an MFA fellowship (2014 – 2016) and a teaching fellowship from Bard College in 2015. In addition, she received a teaching fellowship from Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, CA 2017 – 2018 and she received her BFA from ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, CA (2003-2006). Select solo and group exhibitions include Scope, Tri-Cluster in Berlin, DE (2024); Ruth Gallery, Pasadena, CA (2023); Hermitage, Los Angeles, (2022); Incident Report, Hudson, New York, (2016), Ono, Los Angeles, CA (2016); San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA (2015); Waterfront, Kingston, NY (2015); Autonomie, Los Angeles CA (2012); Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA (2008); Compact Space, Los Angeles, CA (2006); Washington Projects, Los Angeles, CA (2005); ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, CA (2005). Caitlin (Caiti Slegr) Ross is Art Department Chairperson and faculty at Immaculate Heart High School in Loz Feliz and lives in Los Angeles.
email: caitislegr@gmail.com
626.390.2551
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www.slegrova.org