Category: Rebecca Storm

Born in Seattle, Washington, artist Aidan Koch’s work explores our human tendency for anthropomorphism, focusing on its inherent potential rather than its more obvious shortcomings. On view at Paul Soto until March 28, Always Put the Rock Back is Koch’s latest exhibition, inspired by a small note she observed left at a Nature Reserve urging visitors to leave the environment as they found it. Running the gamut from pastels and gouache illustrations, to small-scale sculptures, Koch’s multiple mediums accommodate the myriad gestures through which we bear an allegiance to nature.

Amy Brener’s exhibition, Consolarium, on view now at Jack Barrett Gallery in New York, seems to parallel this AI phenomenon—each work a collection of data, a definitive, though at times ambiguous, form. Ethereal towers in cream-bush ivory and purple—as vivid as the smooth interior of a mussel shell—bolster an air of ceremony, made informal through their unique features and counterparts. Brener’s works seem to be the resulting, physical manifestation of opening a foggy mind, shaking loose its conspicuous ephemera for the sake of more easily reaching its subterranean core. These loose artifacts are entombed in resin, their psychic baggage eulogized in sculpture—a totem bearing the insignia of memory. Its objective significance psychedelic, its subjective legacy deeply intimate.