Aaron Brodeur, Crutch, 2023, cement, styrofoam, wood, wire, acrylic, 36 x 15 x 10.5 in
Aaron Brodeur, Is it going good in the garden?
May 14–June 6
Equity Gallery Courtyard
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 14, 6:00–8:00 PM
“As a painter and sculptor, I maintain distinct practices in each field while also investigating the spectrum between them as a natural extension of my work. My work develops through material curiosity, layered processes, and the accumulation of imagery, ideas, and forms. Is it going good in the garden? falls within that spectrum, leaning more heavily into sculpture while still carrying aspects of painting through its surfaces and treatments.
The exhibition presents a group of sculptural forms situated within a post-natural garden environment shaped by cultural debris, synthetic growth, and the residue of human systems. The works exist in a space where categories have collapsed and objects operate in unstable territory between organism, artifact, infrastructure, and ritual architecture. Brutalist structure intersects with absurdist logic through forms that appear familiar yet altered, as if their original purposes dissolved and new behaviors emerged.
The sculptures suggest adaptive relics from a world that continues to pursue paradise through artificial means, creating environments that feel both resilient and quietly tragic. The sculptures are assembled from accumulated, sourced, reclaimed, and transformed materials including concrete, wood, plastics, marine debris, and industrial remnants. Through processes of coating, layering, heating, carving, assembling, and painting, discarded matter is converted into hybrid forms that appear grown, contained, eroded, or sustained through synthetic ecosystems. These works operate as specimens within an evolving landscape, occupying a middle ground where cultural fossils continue to metabolize debris and invent new functions, revealing a sense of awkward dignity, endurance, and dark humor. The title frames the installation as a gentle but uneasy inquiry, half curious and half doubtful, a deadpan wellness check on paradise long after it has been reshaped by human intervention.”
—Aaron Brodeur