Elizabeth Leach Gallery is pleased to present Malia Jensen’s exhibition Look Out. Jensen populates the space with her imaginative sculpture and ceramic work, locating her signature dark humor and material beauty in subjects ranging from trophy-mounted seals sporting clown ruffs to carefully crafted clay traffic cones and a bronze woodpecker hard at work.
Much of Look Out builds on an oceanic theme as Jensen utilizes her visual language to consider our imperiled oceans and the myriad forces at play beneath the surface. Two salt-fired ceramic sculptures entitled Tide Table (1 and 2) depict opposing waves breaking against one another. Supported by sturdy oak tables built by the artist, the Tide Tables invite viewers to consider different perspectives, as well as giving a nod to the challenges of this undertaking. Jensen brings seals, a common and often benign presence at the ocean shore, to the forefront of our minds. She elevates the seals as subject and also, with their comical ruffs, points to ways humanity has often trained, used and commodified the animal. A series of ceramic orange traffic cones, made by incorporating clay dug from the ground at sites personally significant to the artist, have been captured in different stages of dilapidation. They serve a similar purpose here to what they accomplish out in the world: signaling a crisis, warning of instability. With the artwork in this exhibition Jensen urges us to pay attention, to look outwards, as we examine our relationship with nature and our own complex role as part of it.
