Eric Eley
Drogue
Platform Gallery, Seattle [link]
Drogue registers an aura of narrative familiarity: the works are scattered artifacts of a recently undergone atmospheric voyage. Returned are snapshots in acrylic from the upper atmosphere –the periphery of great frontiers humankind can never fully comprehend. This imagery pleads for imagination, while roughly weathered parachute-like hoods antithetically exude physical reality. These tensile objects hang, skinned in burlap and leather, like aging bodies pocked from their cryptic past. Eley’s work reveals boundaries, specifically, limitations imposed by the tangible space we inhabit.
His ethereal imagery emphasizes curiosity’s perpetual nature, while the hoods resonate a subdued reminder that aspirations are vexed by corporeality.
images courtesy of the artist