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Blot

Excerpt from press for the exhibition "Blot" at the Monte Vista.

In the exhibition Blot, Curt LeMieux evokes the tragedy of oil spills, repetitive and catastrophic insults to life that have become so commonplace as to be virtually synonymous with the Earth's demise. LeMieux's works on fabric suggest the ready association we make between black blots and blobs and petroleum spills, branded on our consciousness as symbols of our dalliance with apocalypse. The artist's use of industrial household materials, evidence of both the private sphere and the exploitative practices that provide for it, induces a turn from comfort to revulsion as degradation intrudes into the domestic ideal.

In one of the works, a black stain seems to spread spontaneously within a decorative linen dinner napkin, imitative of the oil spill's necrotic process. The form is hacked apart; fragments of fiber stick out. There seems to be an attempt to establish or classify the location of animals within this environment: two small strips of canvas adhere directly to the surface; upon one of the strips is written the word "Tern" and upon the other, the word "Tuna." The use of signifying language denotes both containment and an extinction hit list whose meanings shift over the course of the series.