Zoe Chressanthis’ Utopian World
Kimi Hanauer explores the subtle familiarity in the sculptural worlds of Zoe Chressanthis.
Part I: A Place To Rest
“Excerpts from Swamp Island Cave with Albino Gator”
2017, Plasticine, Acrylic Paint
4 x 6 inches
The exhibition YET, UNKNOWN proposes that knowledge is dependent on an understanding
of the unknown that is based on our own experience of the world. Humans are motivated to
understand, and attempt to control, the contexts in which they inhabit. We use common
sense to determine our own behavior, language, and understanding of our surroundings as
we navigate different environments. In the text Outline of a Theory of Practice, Pierre
Bourdieu, a French theorist, defines the term doxa as a commonsense knowledge that is tied
to the specific cultural identity of a place and defines social norms that are often left
unspoken, or taken for granted. Doxa is a kind of commonsense that certain ‘natural’
inhabitants of a place are indoctrinated into, and others, visitors for example, are not able to
easily pick up on.
The idea of doxa came to mind while investigating Zoe Chressanthis’ body of work and
wondering what type of logic or commonsense defines the creation and navigation of her
constructed environments. Chressanthis’ style embraces a naivety while remaining assertive,
building miniature worlds out of plasticine clay accompanied by dramatic colorful lighting that
pushes each scene to appear as a dreamscape. Made up of seemingly ‘natural’
occurrences, organisms, plant life—generally uninterrupted by human behavior—these
environments linger between known and unknown realities. Her spaces feel quiet and empty
of human touch, with the lone animal-like presence of a small snake crawling up a rock, for
example. In this tranquility, agency is held by the artist’s characters such as metallic palm
trees, gravel, starfish, cactuses, and other plant-like organisms that are less recognizable.
While typically presenting her work through films, animations, and images, in this exhibition
Chressanthis moves her practice into the realm of sculpture, presenting the worlds
themselves. For YET, UNKNOWN, she is creating a new ecosystem for our minds to find rest
and ease within, a space we have probably unconsciously desired to escape to at one point
in time.
“Still from Mers Springs: Shell Bed”
2017, Clay, Acrylic, Paper Mache, Plasticine
(animation 1:08)
Chressanthis transports the viewer into an environment where the existing landscape and
logic isn’t immediately identifiable, uniquely positioning them to experience a mismatch of
internal and external doxa. This position, between the known and unknown, initiates our own
subjectivity, thus allowing the acknowledgment that our understanding of the world is based
on personal, emotional, and experiential factors. In other words, through these works, the
artist asks us to identify the place from which our knowledge comes from—the subjective
lens through which we see and understand the world around us. Through producing these
utopian environments within a paradoxical frame, Chressanthis is asserting a type of
authority over our society’s relationship to the natural world, reminding us of our emotional
and physical ties to that which gives us life. These environments, seemingly thriving,
subsequently ask us to reflect on exactly what it is we are escaping during a time where
society is readily on its way to destroying our natural world.
Chressanthis’ ability to connect us with our place of ‘escape’ is a powerful questioning of the
viewer. What makes the viewer feel free, safe, comfortable, and calm in these spaces? What
are the conditions and variables the viewer is escaping from? What limits the conditions of
safety and freedom the viewer experiences within the work from existing in reality? This
questioning reinforces work being created by many other artists, cultural producers, and
activists today, working to shift and expand our understandings of the world around us, in the
hopes of transforming society. For cultural change to take form, we need artists who guide us
to recognize our biases and prejudices, who ask us to acknowledge the experiences of
others, and who are finding and facilitating moments of empathy. Chressanthis’ work and the
experiences she creates is a necessary complement to other modes of cultural work
happening today. This work is a call for empathy: when you accept your own subjectivity, you
must also accept the subjectivity of others. This positioning is a fundamental and powerful
shift away from dominant dichotomies of ‘right and wrong’ or ‘truth and false,’ that often
violently structure our co-existence.
“Still from Mers Springs: Sea Floor and Reef”
2017, Clay, Acrylic, Paper Mache, Plaster, Plastic ine
(animation 1:08)
Part II: Speaking with Chressanthis
What motivates your work? Powerful and sometimes merciless parts of nature: the desert,
the sea, mountains, volcanoes, and glaciers. Also forming a space in which people do not
reside, or maybe they have been taken by the land itself.
How would you describe the relationship between the different, yet related,
landscapes you are building? Destinations like, Dune Valley, Pink Desert Clouds, Lagoon
Falls, Mers Springs and now Palm Lake appear to exist alone, but really they are different
environments with varying climates that reside within the same world and universe. As of
now, I do not know the name of this world, or planet but I intend to form an atlas of sorts that
fully describes the terrain of each location and what falls in between.
You talk about your environments as being transformative for the viewer. Can you
expand on what experience you hope to create? Until recently, my environments have
been viewed through animation or in photographs and paintings. “View of Palm Lake,” is an
immersive environment, and like my films, it is simply an observation of a habitat, currently
vacant of any inhabitants. I intend for it to be a destination that you can place yourself in
while experiencing not only its visual details but also its sounds, and scents. This full sensory
experience may give the illusion this place is possible, when in our reality it is implausible. A
fully imagined land, presented without a perspective through film or 2D format.
“Still from Dune Valley: Palms” 2015, Plasticine, Composite Images (animation 1:45)
This exhibition circulates around the idea of knowledge and the unknown. Do you feel
like you’ve learned more about our reality through the creation of your environments?
Yes definitely. This piece in particular is more tropical than others before, yet it lies in a cave,
on an island, somehow still thriving. While my work often combines opposing vegetation and
characteristics, it isn’t intended to be proven, I prefer it to remain mysterious. Much like
certain aspects of our own reality, whether in nature or in society.
What is something that makes you feel free? Visiting my hometown, Topanga in Southern
California. It is nestled in a canyon and if you drive only 15 minutes down a winding road you
will find the ocean. Ironically I am afraid of water.
This essay is part of a series commissioned, in collaboration with Informality Blog, for the
exhibition YET, UNKNOWN at Paragraph Gallery (23 E 12th St, Kansas City, MO 64106)
open from July 27 through August 26, 2017. These pieces, co-edited by Melaney Mitchell
(Founder & Senior Editor of Informality Blog) and Lynnette Miranda (Curator-in-Residence at
Charlotte Street Foundation) focus on a shared goal of bringing the eyes of national writers
to the work of Kansas City-based artists.