Susan Hobbs

In 2010, Kevin and his brother Robert traveled to New Orleans, a trip that unintentionally coincided with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that endangered the region’s coastlands at the time. After witnessing the effects of the spill, Kevin returned to forms and themes from his 2009 exhibition at the gallery—which alluded to the landscape of Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina—in new and collaborative work that investigates the surface of water as a plane that is constantly being navigated—and often conceals what lies below it.

For this exhibition, Kevin again explores the capacious potential of the miniature with a 71-inch—or 1:220 scale—model of the Emma Maersk, the world’s largest container ship currently in use. Though not directly connected to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Emma Maersk points to the circulation and extraction of materials in the vast and largely unknowable seas between continents, which are rarely given notice lest disaster draws our attention to them. Also, Kevin’s rusty model of a smaller commercial vessel, mirrored along a horizontal axis and sealed in a bottle, doubly emphasizes its hermeticism and creates a pause to reflect on the potential effects of disasters at sea.

Additionally, Kevin presents two video works, made in collaboration with Robert, an experimental filmmaker, that highlight the tenuous relationship between humans and water by documenting and visually altering the effects of stones on an ice-covered pond.

Opening: Thursday 19 April 7 - 9 p.m.