some things grow in whispers

In Some Things Grow In Whispers, artist Katherine Nuñez creates a world–almost in the shape of an altar, where the silence of things small and enduring engulfs the noise of everything grand and burning. The patchwork moulds to a familiar shape, now sewn together by elements stubbornly seeping out from the rigid concrete, whose supple nature wears down sharp edges and makes it tender. These are the elements sitting idly 1) by the old tree resting at the abandoned corner lot, 2) on the stain made by oxidized iron, found in 3) rocks of unknown provenance picked up from the side of the road, even 4) flowers in the backyard that would otherwise be indistinguishable from common weed. To simply call what emerges an installation would be to dismiss its function as a living breathing site, reducing it to something that can easily be circumscribed with rationality. It persists to be something alive and growing, working around the fact of decay instead of opposing it. 

 

The artist walks you along a series of works, patched together thoughtfully and slowly in every level–from the world in the shape of an altar, to the quiet movement of bruised organza, the moderately-sized pieces of embroidered textile with its microbial compositions, and the clusters of rocks whose rough-hewn hardness are dampened by the loving labor of decorative beadwork. As the scale shifts to smaller and smaller components it feels more and more of a warm welcome. Every fragment is a world where there are multitudes contained in the things that grow small and silent: a sober respite from the failures of the promise of everything monumental, always clamoring for attention. We are offered a world where Attention is the conduit for the creation of better and tender worlds. Every little knot is a world where myths are undone, revealing how everything we were told was great and desirable are the ones responsible for destroying a hundred-million possible futures. This is the kind of barren shrill we were born to wake up to and labor to our graves to. In the end, it is the stubborn elements seeping out the crevices of the rigid concrete that will endure at the dusk and ruins of the apocalypse. As it has been before any monuments, before any human.

 

Every little knot is a spell to love and act deeply. Here, the loneliness of a monument is transmuted to the amity of the flora in a garden. Here in the world in the shape of an altar, there is nothing that endures which isn’t tender.