Oona Stern

reSurfacing (window)

catalog text (with Amy Bay):

Original drawings and reproductions are applied directly to the surface of the Carriage House. The images are of traditional siding materials; wood paneling, stone and shingles, and range from semi-representational to graphic. They are not illusionistic, intended as a trick of deceit, like a trompe l'oeil. The drawings are obvious. They are discrete. They are distinct. They retain the hand, the act of drawing, and the act of representation. The way in which they are installed allows the original structure and material to be revealed as relief behind each image. The installation consists of several areas of drawing, a kind of patchwork. While the installation is to be considered conceptually as a whole, each segment is also a self contained piece, with it's own nuances and considerations. 

This project is an act of drawing directly onto the real world. We are reconfiguring the facade through drawing; shifting the location of a window, and masking sections such as the door. The drawing of siding moves beyond representation, and becomes the thing itself, taking it's place. We experience the images as material. In this way drawings become sculpture. 

The visual shifts in material suggest a history to the building. Changes in architectural material are often a result of a change in a building's function. We are familiar with the bricked over window, or the newness of a repair. We see a window placement on an elevation, and anticipate behind it an interior structure. reSurfacing implies various or possible histories in each material shift. 

The project toys with different intensities of resurfacing and their effects on our conscious and unconscious reading of architecture and drawing. It is not art which is set within a rarefied space and asked to be considered in a special context. Inserted into the real world, it sneaks into one's consciousness.