RECEPTION: September 17th, 2010

Marlboro Gallery National Juried Sculpture Exhibition
August 23 - September 30, 2010
Marlboro Gallery, Largo, MD

Juror: Molly Donovan, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Art



"I am interested in the concept of human thought--how we find, choose, and absorb information, particularly verbal information. The knot-making and audio of each piece combine to convey the complexity of this process. Making each work is meditative and systematic, but also intricate —in seeing the involution of each piece with its countless knots and interconnections and assuming its lengthy creation, a metaphor for the process of human thought imbeds itself in the minds of viewers.

My work taps into our obsession with communication and is intrinsically voyeuristic. Built during what has been called the Net generation, each piece presents a contemporarily common situation: we are allowed to eavesdrop into private thoughts and recorded conversations of friends and strangers alike. Faced in life with hundreds of methods of communication with thousands of people, it is a listener’s own willful decision to pick through every audible moment to overhear, to listen, or to fully comprehend the information rushing around them.

With the speakers strategically placed and the volume kept low but audible, viewers are forced to stoop and bend an ear to the surrogate storyteller within my pieces, as if receiving a whispered confession or secret information. The information can be serious or whimsical, exploring the idea that we determine the level of importance of the information we hear.

The final voyeuristic element to my work is watching others experience each piece. These secondary viewers can try to listen to the recordings themselves, perhaps envying the proximity of the initial viewers, or they can simply choose to ignore the work because a large enough disconnect exists to minimize their interest. For some, the initial viewer becomes a part of the work—watching them lean into each sculpture is a transmission of information in itself."


Emily Biondo is a visual artist working and residing in Washington, DC. She received a BA in Studio Art from McDaniel College in Westminster, MD, and is currently attending American University to receive an MFA in Studio Art in 2011.