Fleeting Terrain March 4, 2011

FLEETING TERRAIN:
“Fleeting Terrain” presents four artists examining a range of comparative aesthetics. Memory, atmosphere, nostalgia and transience cloud together within an expanding vastness. Objects ignite seeds of recognition, highlighting elements of urban escapism. The smoky dream that rises, precipitates its knowledge, and makes fertile ground for anxious spores. This form of ennui is embodied most accurately by the Russian term “toska,” which has been described numerous ways. Often "toska" is cited as an unnamable restlessness, or a pining nostalgia for the unknown. As novelist Vladamir Nabokov notes, “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska.” It is a sentiment that carries duality also. At its worst, it becomes despair, and in its best light “toska” conveys a compulsive drive within every human spirit. The films of Andrei Tarkovsky (specifically "Stalker" 1979) and even more recently, the photos of Ryan McGinley, demonstrate these restive urges that have found their way into "Fleeting Terrain." Bubbling beneath the topsoil, the idle psyche takes flight, abandoning its familiar topography below and itching for transcendence.

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