Solo exhibition For Dear Life at Roq La Rue Gallery in Seattle, Washington.
Roq La Rue is pleased to welcome sculptor Debra Baxter back to the gallery with a new series of sculptures created from crystal, metal, carved alabaster, and found objects. This new series mixes her interest in the formality of Victorian mourning ritual iconography with found objects imbued with a animistic power, natural objects that suggest forms that the artist then uses and further embellishes to create modern era objects of power, both as protective amulets as well as vessels of both grief and hope. For this series, Baxter created work as a response to the enormous global upheavals and anxiety we are collectively experiencing, and take that vulnerability and turn it into a protective object.
This show features a few works that return to previous themes she has explored, such as the “chakra-rearranging” crystal knuckles series, that are both fierce but also are meant to find a bit of humorous relief in the absurdity of the piece. Her anatomical heart pieces in this show are not the glowing silver and gold of the previous shows, but blackened and filled with dark crystals, survivors of trail by fire.
New works based on timely subjects include “Suck It Up” a ventilation bag carved out of alabaster which refers to taking the collective anxiety during Covid 19 and BLM upheaval and turning it into power through the crystals that erupt out of it.
It opens August 13, 2020 and runs until September 5.
Exhibition will be available online at Roq La Rue