Elizabeth Leach Gallery is pleased to present Anna Von Mertens’s exhibition Elements and Objects, which brings together two new bodies of work created meticulously with colored pencils on black paper. One series references the cosmos while the other is sourced from the digital world. Both speak to how these abstract realms are tangibly present in our everyday lives.
In her series Remnants, Von Mertens devised an iterative process to create each drawing that references the generative life cycles of stars. She arranged tangles of jewelry on sun-sensitive paper into forms reminiscent of cosmic phenomena. Exposing these arrangements to the sun, a chemical reaction occurred anywhere sunlight hit the paper, creating a record of both where the jewelry was in full contact with the paper and where the jewelry lifted slightly from it. Von Mertens used these patterns of touch points and slippages as sketches, then refined them into finished drawings using metallic pencils against black backgrounds. This step-by-step creation is a testament to the connection between all things - each of us is a slow gathering of stardust - yet with each step the preceding steps recede.
The three drawings from Von Mertens’s continuing series Objects (100 Emojis) use pattern to animate the symbols that populate our phones. In one drawing, items of mending, tending, cutting, and repairing repeat in a diagonal cascade. In another, the repeated shapes of four emojis are arranged to echo the geometry of the traditional Tumbling Blocks quilt pattern. Giving these objects hours of attention with her careful rendering, Von Mertens offers the reminder that these images in our phones are as much a part of this world as anything else. We share the same ecosystem.
In both aspects of her show Von Mertens finds value in pulling remote worlds closer, making distant realms feel more present. Experiencing a broader perspective helps make the connections we build precious, and create value in our human existence.
