Erin Rae Skelton (Montreal, Quebec, Canada)
Mother Repetitions IV
2021
SCOBY
Dimensions Variable
Artwork description:
S.C.O.B.Y. is a commonly used acronym for “Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast.”
Artist statement:
These cylinders were grown in a series of containers filled with a sweet black tea uniquely made to nourish the community, the community of bacterial life that form microbial skins as they eat and ferment the liquid into kombucha. Harvested and then dried, I’ve curled the rectangular SCOBY sheets into vessels that contain the metonym of their living environment. This is the forth making of this series titled, “ Mother Repetitions IV “. Each piece in each of these series are all part of the same lineage. The bacterial culture is regenerative in its nature, multiplying sheets of cellulose as long as a source of nourishment is provided. It is a hope in the dark to signal that not all is lost in a modern day culture that insists on dividing the individual into neat little packages. The caring for, in the process of making/growing these objects/subjects is a practice of an acute awareness of our shared, living and breathing environments.
Artist Bio:
Erin Rae Skelton is an experimental artist whose work oozes emotional residue generated by process. Erin uses non-conventional ways of making in order to express deeper meaning outside the constructs of failure and success. Erin holds a BFA from Concordia University and is currently in graduate school at Alfred University.