A smiley-face pin balanced on a wall-mounted thermostat; an infant’s onesie reflected in an antique mirror; an office lamp propping open a window shade.
The experience of walking through “Interior Space” – an installation which opened July 26 at University of Illinois Springfield’s Visual Arts Gallery – is something like wandering into a stranger’s sparse attic or onto the set of a dream sequence in a 1960s Italian film.
The work, by Allyson Packer, is spread throughout the entire gallery (occasionally even beyond its physical boundaries).
Packer, who is from Albuquerque, New Mexico, is a summer resident in the Enos Park Residency for Visual Artists program. Although at first glance it might seem like there is little or nothing on display, a little hunting gradually reveals a bounty of unlikely objects, including the ones described above, many of them displayed in even less likely ways.
The items, distributed throughout the space with deceptive precision and wit, were all borrowed from Springfield residents by Packer for the purpose of the exhibition.
Also at the UIS gallery on July 26 was a one-night-only multichannel audio installation by Normal, Illinois-based artist and composer ZW Buckley, entitled “faith comes by hearing.”
Buckley described the work as “exploring the themes of transience and permanence within Springfield’s Enos Park neighborhood.”
This article appeared in the Illinois Times on August 1, 2018.
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