Pamela Hadley
She’s Always Been Gone (2020)
single-channel video and sculpture installation with digitally projected and mapped abstract animation on walnut
72 x 2 x 2 in.
NFS
“Light is the source of phenomenological activity and my practice is a mode of looking. This scrap of walnut was once a living structure. Exactly adapted to its original place – each cell grew in precise and particular relation to that location and moment. Incredibly specific, it reads as purposeful and avoids metaphor. It has been repeatedly removed, re-purposed and discarded. Each time it is displaced, it’s specific qualities are divorced from their purpose. All that remains now is evidence of a compounded removal from place. Displaced from context by the non-place that is my studio, the material specificity of this unique object as it is hidden and revealed by light receives all of our perceptual attention.
Ambiguous grief is on-going grief for someone who is living but has somehow been lost. Due to her mental illness, there have been very few times in my life when I’ve been able to emotionally connect with my mother. Rather, it’s been an on-going cycle of wanting, losing, and grieving her. Reflected only in the title, grief provides a subtle emotional access point – just enough for people to sense themselves as part of an otherwise outwardly focused perceptual encounter.”
© Pamela Hadley