Leah Gauthier
Born in Chicago, IL . Received an M.F.A. from Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA and a B.F.A from The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Lives and works in Boston, MA .
Recent solo exhibitions at The Somerville Community Growing Center, Somerville, MA; The Burren College of Art, Ballyvaughn, Ireland; and Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME.
Participated in group exhibitions at Revolving Museum, Lowell, MA; 808 Gallery, Boston University, Boston, MA; Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford, MA; Mobius, Boston, MA; Gasp Gallery, Brookline, MA; and Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME .
Agriculture, a noble and necessary occupation, is also literally a dirty business and increasingly removed from post-industrial urban and suburban life. Leah Gauthier, by placing agriculture in a specifically cultural context – the museum – asks us to re-imagine the growing, harvesting, preparation, and consumption of food so that we may re-connect with some of humanity’s most fundamental activities.
The museum is in many ways a sacred space, a holy shrine of art in which people act differently, look at things with a fresh perspective, and often seek personal transformation. When these behaviors and attitudes, usually reserved for Art, are brought to bear on Food, our relationships to what nourishes us can change. The beauty of plants and fruits is more manifest, mundane picking and cooking become performed and observed rituals, and eating can be a sacrament. A simple shift in physical context allows us to experience, if even fleetingly, a much older, and perhaps much wiser, connection to nature and our physical being.
-Nick Capasso, Curator
________________________________________________________________
“ Eating is an agricultural act ” - Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry returned to the farm. While it is not practical, nor even possible for the multitudes of us to follow in his footsteps, the agrarian values he champions— sustainable agriculture, wise management of resources, frugality, pleasures of good food, meaningful work, local economy, and connection to place— profoundly make sense, as humanity more deeply suffers the consequences of overpopulation, detachment from the land, global consumer based economies, dependence on industry, and now technology. My generative sculptures, made with heirloom food plants, are an artistic, practical, and philosophical exploration into how growing, cooking, and eating beautiful food together, from within a community, might change us. I have a lot to learn. And I can only dream right now, of possibilities, as the journey will not be mine alone. Yet however this unfolds, here in the beginning, and wherever it leads, this work is an act of hope.
-Leah Gauthier
Image: Leah Gauthier, Melon, 2008, heirloom melon sculptural installation and performance, dimensions variable
Eye Wonder Family Program: The 2008 DeCordova Annual
Guest Artist: Leah Gauthier
Museum Galleries
June 1, drop-in from 1 - 3 pm
FREE with Campus admission
Meet the Artist/Performance: Leah Gauthier
Gauthier will perform and discuss her work in The 2008 DeCordova Annual Exhibition
Museum Galleries
Saturday, August 16 at 3 pm
FREE with Campus admission
