Various Small Fires (VSF) is pleased to present Lena Daly’s Night Bell, the artist’s debut solo exhibition.
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An image of a sound on the other side of night.
I’d always heard sound was a wave, but the wave part refers to its frequency not its shape. Ultra sound gets even weirder: the shockwave, or wall of compressed air. This kind of pressure system moves from representation to actual presence, from a sonic to sight engagement. Infra and ultra appearances tell us that visualization should be slightly scary, like letting someone else look behind your eyes.
The partnership of eye and ear is unique. Careful, no silent projection of sound can ever be adequate. The first rule of translating from ear to eye is: if you can’t hear it, be suspicious. The seeming simplicity of perception is shadowed by imperceptible excitations.
Hearing a shadow, using light to strike and shade sound. And then sampling these basic drops of experience, looping it, catching that feeling, what is more than a feeling? Tones made for a specific feeling, anymore abstract and I think we go invisible. Notes appearing, glowing for a brief second then re-submerging. Memory, a glowing image, like a neural tattoo. Other physical relations. Tones heard as words, a re-sound-ing of resonance. This sounds atmospheric, like humidity. Plus it’s electric, and can really heat up a room.
Perhaps the desire can be satisfied with some kind of contact. A brief glimpse of a motion, an image of the sonic atmosphere at work… or it’s a good way to take yourself out of the communication part of things.
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Lena Daly (b.1986) holds a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and a MFA from The University of Southern California. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions at Balice Hertling, Paris, FR; Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco, CA; The New Wright Gallery, Los Angeles, CA and Garten Studio, Berlin, Germany. She will participate in the Film Sector of Art Basel Miami Beach, 2016. Daly currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.