PORTRAIT OF THE GROUND

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS , SAN FRANCISCO CA 2011

Castaneda/reiman, the collaborative team of Charlie Castaneda and Brody Reiman, investigate the representation of the outdoors within interior domestic spaces. They use construction materials such as drywall, plaster, and particle board – elements used in the buildings homes as well as other structures – and the form of the mantle in order to reference domesticity. In addition to their symbolic function, these materials add an aspect of the mundane to the work. Colloquial landscape paintings that the artists source from flea markets and thrift stores also contribute to an vernacular aesthetic. These canvases, depicting generic scenes of forests, lakes, and hillsides, emulate the natural landscape while they, in turn, are reproduced as digital prints which are then applied to drywall. In this new articulation, they begin to insinuate themselves as sculpture. The vertical orientation of the installation elements, composed of normally horizontal panoramas, also takes on a sculptural profile that highlights the idea of portraiture – referring to the title, Portrait of the Ground, which is a study of one layer of the deconstructed terrain. The multiple levels of reproduction of scenic vistas – first within painting, as a source image, then within sculpture, and within the installation as a whole – suggests a manifold removal from the original and a displacement from the natural world, even as we attempt to bring it into the domestic setting.

—Thien Lam, Curator, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts