Curatorial statement for Love and Isolation, AML Space
Joy Miller
In Kristin Hough’s Cry Montages 1, 4, and 5, the viewer ricochets from one teary face to the next. Each montage comprises four painted stills (11” x 14” each) of contestants weeping on the Bachelor in Paradise (season 6) confession cam. Contestants' tears are sumptuously opaque and palpably suspended mid-splash or mid-stream. Towards the bottom of many of these paintings, float opalescent closed captions ringing out with irony, senselessness, and vacuity. This dizzying tone calls into question the manufacture and consumption of emotion, not only on the massive scale that is reality TV but also in the tiny private realms of self where scenes like these can echo and imbue any sob that might swell one's throat.
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Joy Miller
In Kristin Hough’s Cry Montages 1, 4, and 5, the viewer ricochets from one teary face to the next. Each montage comprises four painted stills (11” x 14” each) of contestants weeping on the Bachelor in Paradise (season 6) confession cam. Contestants' tears are sumptuously opaque and palpably suspended mid-splash or mid-stream. Towards the bottom of many of these paintings, float opalescent closed captions ringing out with irony, senselessness, and vacuity. This dizzying tone calls into question the manufacture and consumption of emotion, not only on the massive scale that is reality TV but also in the tiny private realms of self where scenes like these can echo and imbue any sob that might swell one's throat.
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Looking into the Lightbox
Arielle Hardy
Kristin Hough’s work highlights human reception—whether conscious or unconscious—of external stimuli, and probes the differences between those we choose to consume, and those which are pressed upon us or passively received. These pieces also examine whether reality, and particularly the natural world, maintains its authenticity when filtered through various media. To engage these questions Hough draws inspiration from myriad sources which pervade modern life; chief among these is reality (especially survival-based) television, but her work also incorporates elements from self-help or religious leaflets like those distributed on street corners and left on front porches. Drawing inspiration from these seemingly unconnected sources, Hough finds similar opportunities to inquire into the role of autonomy in human interpretation of modern media.
The series Nature Show includes close-up views of animals, plants, and insects in their natural environments, shown as if the viewer were encountering them face to face in the outside world. However, many of these images include framing devices which intentionally reference a viewing experience physically separated from the object of viewing. A painted frame—a “rounded rectangle” reminiscent of a CRT television screen—creates this effect in works on paper, while the clear plastic keychains containing goldfish-sized paintings of fish effect this same division in three dimensions. In a gallery setting, the visitor is forced to come to terms with their additional level of separation from the natural world depicted in these pieces.
Similar references to television’s role in directing viewership are teased out in other works. In How To: A Paradise, ultra-close up glimpses of contestants from “reality” programs are laid out in a grid: an arrangement akin to story-boards. Perhaps this is a subtle reminder of the often scripted nature of these realities. The proximity and cropping of the subjects, however, makes these scenes visually difficult to read and their narratives difficult to ascertain, heightening a sense of drama and challenging attempts to engage and interpret the actors and their experiences. Exaggeration of reality and contrived theatricality—and the role of narrative in this process—become abundantly clear in Hough’s chosen frames.
Text too plays a major role in this inquisition. Hough often transcribes it verbatim from various sources, but in highly curated, often truncated phrases which divest it from its original context and meaning. In the Microcosmic Gods series, text derived from the closed-captioning on programs from which Hough draws inspiration is superimposed over scenes of unpopulated natural landscapes. The words become ominous, threatening, dramatic—at odds with the backgrounds they overlay, which are rendered in saturated, at times electric tones mimicking the luminosity and hyperpigmentation of the television screen rather than the natural world which it projects. The conflicting narratives presented by the text and image in singular pieces forces the viewer to be present in their viewership and engage in shaping a personal interpretation of impersonal messaging.
Hough also plays with the relationships between intended versus perceived messages in her work inspired by distributed pamphlets. Some pieces present dry but inspirational directives transposed onto waterfalls and rainbows, where in others, the unassuming gravitas of the messaging is imbued with an unmistakable religiosity, enhanced by imagery including crosses, open doors, and messianic figures. Emotional weight or levity of these phrases is affected by the backgrounds they appear on, and their originally intended messages are left ambiguous, relying instead on the viewer negotiate the dynamic between text and image.
The questions Hough chooses to engage have far wider applications than the pieces in this exhibition. Her show reminds the viewer of the importance of asserting personal agency in interpreting the media put in front of us. The work resonates with our power of choice in that process.
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Arielle Hardy
Kristin Hough’s work highlights human reception—whether conscious or unconscious—of external stimuli, and probes the differences between those we choose to consume, and those which are pressed upon us or passively received. These pieces also examine whether reality, and particularly the natural world, maintains its authenticity when filtered through various media. To engage these questions Hough draws inspiration from myriad sources which pervade modern life; chief among these is reality (especially survival-based) television, but her work also incorporates elements from self-help or religious leaflets like those distributed on street corners and left on front porches. Drawing inspiration from these seemingly unconnected sources, Hough finds similar opportunities to inquire into the role of autonomy in human interpretation of modern media.
The series Nature Show includes close-up views of animals, plants, and insects in their natural environments, shown as if the viewer were encountering them face to face in the outside world. However, many of these images include framing devices which intentionally reference a viewing experience physically separated from the object of viewing. A painted frame—a “rounded rectangle” reminiscent of a CRT television screen—creates this effect in works on paper, while the clear plastic keychains containing goldfish-sized paintings of fish effect this same division in three dimensions. In a gallery setting, the visitor is forced to come to terms with their additional level of separation from the natural world depicted in these pieces.
Similar references to television’s role in directing viewership are teased out in other works. In How To: A Paradise, ultra-close up glimpses of contestants from “reality” programs are laid out in a grid: an arrangement akin to story-boards. Perhaps this is a subtle reminder of the often scripted nature of these realities. The proximity and cropping of the subjects, however, makes these scenes visually difficult to read and their narratives difficult to ascertain, heightening a sense of drama and challenging attempts to engage and interpret the actors and their experiences. Exaggeration of reality and contrived theatricality—and the role of narrative in this process—become abundantly clear in Hough’s chosen frames.
Text too plays a major role in this inquisition. Hough often transcribes it verbatim from various sources, but in highly curated, often truncated phrases which divest it from its original context and meaning. In the Microcosmic Gods series, text derived from the closed-captioning on programs from which Hough draws inspiration is superimposed over scenes of unpopulated natural landscapes. The words become ominous, threatening, dramatic—at odds with the backgrounds they overlay, which are rendered in saturated, at times electric tones mimicking the luminosity and hyperpigmentation of the television screen rather than the natural world which it projects. The conflicting narratives presented by the text and image in singular pieces forces the viewer to be present in their viewership and engage in shaping a personal interpretation of impersonal messaging.
Hough also plays with the relationships between intended versus perceived messages in her work inspired by distributed pamphlets. Some pieces present dry but inspirational directives transposed onto waterfalls and rainbows, where in others, the unassuming gravitas of the messaging is imbued with an unmistakable religiosity, enhanced by imagery including crosses, open doors, and messianic figures. Emotional weight or levity of these phrases is affected by the backgrounds they appear on, and their originally intended messages are left ambiguous, relying instead on the viewer negotiate the dynamic between text and image.
The questions Hough chooses to engage have far wider applications than the pieces in this exhibition. Her show reminds the viewer of the importance of asserting personal agency in interpreting the media put in front of us. The work resonates with our power of choice in that process.
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The American Narrative Reevaluated, Having Happened Catalog
Britt Royer
Kristin Hough’s work deconstructs American tropes of travel, landscape, and individuality by altering the conventional ways of how experiences are documented and communicated. Obscuring recognizable features with paint, Hough calls into question how perception conceals clear meaning and prevents consideration of the unseen components driving American culture and behavior. Her work confronts the viewer with the unsettling contradictions of what it means to be a person in western society. Through color, form, and abstraction, Hough’s paintings reevaluate the aesthetics that conventionally glorify American experiences. Her images of family and friends in nature draw attention to the superficial, commercial staging of such common experiences. Hough’s paintings physically obscure the subjects depicted, leaving them fragmented and lost in an abstracted landscape.
At times, Hough’s paintings embrace vegetal natural forms, while other works focus on artificial means to expose the American narrative. In the process of creating, Hough questions how memory and human ideals transform the reality of a given experience. Her work distorts conventions of “pictured memory” to expose the curated manner of conventional documentation. Parallel to Peter Doig’s style of “found” images reinterpreted through abstraction, Hough’s source materials often come from photographs of individuals posing in tourist destinations or scenic views. Hough reproduces these subjects, but removes their life-like, mimetic qualities, and thus uncovers the deeper meanings and contradictions of the staged originals. The artist’s reproductions leave her viewer confronted with the subject’s material rawness, drawing attention to the psychological and emotional consequences of curated culture through gestural landscapes, obscured forms, and fragmented individuals.
Some of Hough’s paintings approach their subjects through conventional, dramatic staging. These works, such as Foray I, II, and III, depict figures centered in the frame, outwardly facing the viewer. Others, like It Churns I, capture the awkward faults of human poses. The work depicts the figures in between the frames, with the subjects literally falling and fragmented by the door panels of the continuous landscape. By distorting the subjects’ faces through exaggerated body angles or simplified lines, Hough’s strategies refuse the viewer direct access to the figures’ identities, and offer a visual critique of taking memory at face value.
Hough’s abstraction also illuminates the undermining qualities often associated with American commercial aesthetics. The artist plays with the idea of “bad art” in commercial designs by referencing their stylistic clichés, dramatic staging, and vibrant colors. For example, in It Churns I and II, Hough uses collage and paint to apply dried flowers to the doors’ surfaces. Hough’s use of neon pink to obscure the flowers’ natural qualities draws attention to the ways nature is commercialized and domesticated to attract buyers. By confronting the means of cultural imagery, Hough’s work uncovers a raw version of the American experience, appropriating modes of cheerful colors and blank faces to subtly critique the inauthentic narrative. Through these techniques, Hough strives to uncover the driving yet isolating forces behind staged identity
Britt Royer
Kristin Hough’s work deconstructs American tropes of travel, landscape, and individuality by altering the conventional ways of how experiences are documented and communicated. Obscuring recognizable features with paint, Hough calls into question how perception conceals clear meaning and prevents consideration of the unseen components driving American culture and behavior. Her work confronts the viewer with the unsettling contradictions of what it means to be a person in western society. Through color, form, and abstraction, Hough’s paintings reevaluate the aesthetics that conventionally glorify American experiences. Her images of family and friends in nature draw attention to the superficial, commercial staging of such common experiences. Hough’s paintings physically obscure the subjects depicted, leaving them fragmented and lost in an abstracted landscape.
At times, Hough’s paintings embrace vegetal natural forms, while other works focus on artificial means to expose the American narrative. In the process of creating, Hough questions how memory and human ideals transform the reality of a given experience. Her work distorts conventions of “pictured memory” to expose the curated manner of conventional documentation. Parallel to Peter Doig’s style of “found” images reinterpreted through abstraction, Hough’s source materials often come from photographs of individuals posing in tourist destinations or scenic views. Hough reproduces these subjects, but removes their life-like, mimetic qualities, and thus uncovers the deeper meanings and contradictions of the staged originals. The artist’s reproductions leave her viewer confronted with the subject’s material rawness, drawing attention to the psychological and emotional consequences of curated culture through gestural landscapes, obscured forms, and fragmented individuals.
Some of Hough’s paintings approach their subjects through conventional, dramatic staging. These works, such as Foray I, II, and III, depict figures centered in the frame, outwardly facing the viewer. Others, like It Churns I, capture the awkward faults of human poses. The work depicts the figures in between the frames, with the subjects literally falling and fragmented by the door panels of the continuous landscape. By distorting the subjects’ faces through exaggerated body angles or simplified lines, Hough’s strategies refuse the viewer direct access to the figures’ identities, and offer a visual critique of taking memory at face value.
Hough’s abstraction also illuminates the undermining qualities often associated with American commercial aesthetics. The artist plays with the idea of “bad art” in commercial designs by referencing their stylistic clichés, dramatic staging, and vibrant colors. For example, in It Churns I and II, Hough uses collage and paint to apply dried flowers to the doors’ surfaces. Hough’s use of neon pink to obscure the flowers’ natural qualities draws attention to the ways nature is commercialized and domesticated to attract buyers. By confronting the means of cultural imagery, Hough’s work uncovers a raw version of the American experience, appropriating modes of cheerful colors and blank faces to subtly critique the inauthentic narrative. Through these techniques, Hough strives to uncover the driving yet isolating forces behind staged identity