Tessarae of Venus

Category

Exhibition

Year

2009

Institution

Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Comment

Tesserae of Venus imagines a strange future through dynamic photomontages of energy-producing landscapes and related drawings.McPhee borrows from the tectonics of Venus-tesserae, or ‘complex ridged folds,’ in order to structure her images of imagined future sites and present a spatial and political critique of our toxic, increasingly-carbon saturated environment. The photomontages are sourced on location in remote parts of California where biological systems clash with technological landscapes, such as natural gas installations in the Sacramento River Delta, geothermal plants in the Salton Sea, and the San Ardo oil fields in the Salinas River Valley. Rendered through her fractured images these sites become haunting, science-fictive visions of a possible future.As both futuristic fantasy and documentary reality, Tesserae of Venus proposes a disturbing and radical observation of contemporary and future landscapes in the transition from petroleum to alternative energy production. At the same time, McPhee’s works constitute compelling studies of the mechanics of abstraction in the age of computer technology. (http://jessicasilvermangallery.com/exhibitions/tesserae-of-venus/)