Richard Speer reviews Carrie Iverson's Correspondence (Visual Art Source)

Carrie Iverson, Relict, 2011
kilnformed glass, 21 x 35 x .325 inches
Photo by: D. Kvitka

"Carrie Iverson mixes media with fluency and thoughtfulness in Correspondence, a meditation on the memory loss experienced by her father. Throughout the exhibition are references to objects or ideas from which parts have been taken away. The lines of journal entries in the kiln-formed glass 'Redacted' seem to have been arbitrarily erased, as if written with disappearing ink. In an untitled installation, the ashes of handwritten letters lie in a heap before a lone chair, a light bulb hanging ominously overhead. What did the letters contain? Why were they burned? The ashes offer only the hint of a narrative.

Another untitled installation is hung with white rope in gentle arcs that seem to terminate in a line of wooden slats stapled with sooty-looking pieces of paper. Blackened string hangs wanly down from the slats, a sad denouement to the white ropes’ springy lilt. Punctuating the exhibition are works on paper that demonstrate Iverson’s background in printmaking. As with other pieces in glass, Plexiglas and diverse other media, visual motifs in paper repeat and dialogue with one another in forms not immediately discernible. Devoid of context and explication, they float through the viewer’s field of vision as if adrift in muddy waters that once ran clear." - Richard Speer