Comic Dust // New Works by Alicia Renadette

Occam Projects is pleased to present Comic Dust, a solo exhibition featuring new works by Alicia Renadette. Laced with household objects and celebratory memorabilia Renadette’s sculptures are bizarre spectacles. These alien arrangements of nostalgic materials explore themes of traumatic memory, domestic ritual, and unattainable fantasy.

The body of work presented in Comic Dust is comprised of complex and absurd configurations of discarded materials and memorabilia. Renadette’s uncanny assemblages expose a culture seeped in sentimental materiality which “often confuses hijacked pageantry with heartfelt ritual.” In Homesick for a Holiday Hangover Renadette creates a cacophonous spectacle. Festive ritual is subverted as Renadette’s christmas tree is rendered hauntingly artificial, its plastic sheen twisted upon itself in a state of prolonged decay. In contrast the tree is overgrown with organic fragments of domesticity; upholstery fabric, pillows, sweaters, and afghans imbue the piece with a sense of palpable longing. The familiar detritus found throughout Renadette’s assemblages exist in a state of perpetual conflict. Bright, saccharine relics of childhood fantasy and naivety are juxtaposed with discarded vestiges of blue-collar sentimentality. The result is a surreal conglomeration of cynicism and desire.