ASHES/ASHES is pleased to present Chaos Pony, a solo exhibition by Chloe Seibert. The exhibition will be on view from May 6th to June 26th, 2022, with an opening on Friday, May 6th, from 6–8 pm. Gallery hours are Wednesday—Sunday, 12–6pm.
Wrought by physical labor and cathartic release, Chloe Seibert’s sculptures depict faces in moments of erupting pathos. Her mythical beasts possess a seductive and sinister appeal, looming large like the memory of a childhood fable, giving a face to the shadow side of humanity. The immediacy of her mediums, plaster and clay, become conductors for chaos itself.
Within the installation, monumental Venetian masks leer at the viewer from the walls with toothy grins. These works mischievously straddle sculpture and painting, as well as acting as visual metaphors for the tension between divine fantasy and perceived reality. Expressions are rendered quickly and freely, in a fit of rebellion; they force together the languages of traditional sculpture, the anarchic impulse of graffiti, and the theatrics of masquerade. Despite our appearances, they say, we are all inherently wild things.
Drawing from her past work in warehouses, trucking, and as an art laborer, Seibert affixes metal chains and crate handles into a plaster fresco. Formed of visceral grabs, slaps and slathers, these industrial materials are the sinews of our built and logistical world, our “outside body.” Seibert’s practice both celebrates and problematizes this outside body, contrasting it with an interior fire.
Polished helmets populate the installation, ready to be donned for play or battle. Seibert makes clear that jouissance often erupts from the same Janus-faced impulse. The anthropomorphized helmets evoke Miyazaki as much as they do ancient Greek mythology. Chaos Pony explores the tensions between our organic and inorganic bodies, our interior and public selves, and the life force pulsating through it all. If defiant Prometheus fashioned humanity from clay, Seibert uses the same prima materia to reflect our riotous nature back to us.
– Paul Heyer
Chloe Seibert (b. 1989; Queens, NY) lives and works in Queens, NY. She received a BFA from The School of the Art Institute (Chicago, IL). She has had solo exhibitions at: No Place Gallery, Columbus, OH; Mickey, Chicago, IL; Queer Thoughts, Chicago, IL and New York, NY; Efrain Lopez Gallery, Chicago, IL; COOPER COLE, Toronto, Canada; Interstate Projects, Brooklyn, NY; and Courtney Blades, Chicago, IL. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at: Jack Hanley Gallery, New York, NY; SUNNY, New York, NY; Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Karma International, Los Angeles, CA; Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA; Balice Hertling, Paris, France; Galerie Hussenot, Paris, France; David Shelton Gallery, Houston, TX; Bodega, New York, NY; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL. Her work has been featured and reviewed in The New York Times, Artforum, Art in America, Newcity, and Art Papers, among others.