Kevin Sloan | Soft Monuments

Whom or what do we choose to memorialize? Whom or what should be put to stone, to song or paint? Who deserves bronze? What ascends, what is toppled? This group of paintings and sculptures reconsider what is worth keeping, revering and cultivating. The process of questioning ideally leads to answers or at least,to possibilities.These works exist aspossibilities and evidence of my desire to meet this moment as an artist and an engaged citizen, but more importantly,as a compassionate witness.The ephemeral, delicate and invisible are esteemed in this work. Humble subjects and fleeting thoughts deserve attention, worthy of being set to paint or sculpture.Grandiosity has little place here, these moments are quieter than that. Desires or prayers become written words, which are memorialized in frayed lace. Monuments to courage sculpted in snow and ice, melt back into the soil feeding flowers at their base. Quiet and slow, this work seeks its place in a very loud and fast world. It is deeply serious and unashamedly ecstatic. It’s beautiful, but not merely that. It grows out of the soft wet earth, and while acknowledging the concerns of art, of history and society; it’s ultimately an organic, flawed and wild thing simply trying to become itself.These qualities are its greatest assets and greatest liabilities. And so, in a time of so much not knowing, the work becomes quiet, gentle and ephemeral suggestions, offering shape to the feeling of the moment.