Mar 182016
 
amyyaoatvsfgalleryroomview

Doppelgangers (in foreground)

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Detail of Doppelgangers

amyyaovsfhomeiswhereyouarehappy

Home is Where You Are Happy, No.1

 

At Amy Yao’s solo exhibition at Various Small Fires, Bay of Smokes, fear of a polluted and harmfully modified environment play a central role. An industrial manufactured scent fills the gallery, lead blankets are on towel racks and a mountain of rice reveals on closer inspection that it has bits of plastic and pearls (real and fake) mixed in. In this time of GMO’s, toxic water in Flint, and the gas leak at Porter Ranch, it’s hard not to be paranoid about what is really happening to our natural surroundings and how poisonous our daily lives really are, especially in ways we cannot discern. Yao’s exhibition is a creative and at times playful examination of these issues, but the darkness of the theme, like the scent remains a constant presence.

This exhibition closes 3/18/16.