Rena Detrixhe is an interdisciplinary artist currently based in Kansas City, MO. Through objects and installations, ephemeral sculpture, performance, drawings, and process-based work, she explores systems of value and cultural relations to land and the more-than-human world with attention to histories of injustice. Her research has been supported by multiple grants and residencies including: a Serenbe Co-Esistere Residency, Stoneleaf Retreat, Tallgrass Artist Residency at the Konza Prairie Biological Station, a two-year residency with Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City, and a one-year research residency with The Land Institute among others.
I weave carpets from dust, transform seeds into lace, suspend a fleeting moment of rain droplets on a window into a solid cast form. Guided by the poetic and inherent qualities of a material and a personal interest in history, memory and geography, I respond. I might become immersed in conversation with a single tree, the collective memories embedded in soil, or an ancient bison wallow, searching for deeper understanding of environment, relationships, and place. I am drawn to materials that hold stories from their familiar sources. I study them until my hands develop a means to respond. With focus and repetition I participate in a meditative act, perhaps similar to the labor of crochet, embroidery or weaving. I pursue a poetic understanding of time, material, history, and place, along with a reckoning of human impact and cultural relations to the land with attention to histories of injustice. In my most recent work I engage in laborious processes, refining soil and sculpting it into delicate ephemeral sculptures that investigate the complicated history of the landscape and systems of value.
Rena Detrixhe and Casey Whittier Collaborative Project for Clay as Place: The Transient Object
Statement
This body of work evolved out of ongoing collaborative work between artists Rena Detrixhe and Casey Whittier.
Stemming from a deep regard for the land and the desire to create work that responds to place, their shared work invites close attention and reflection and communicates the intention to care for the landscape. Materials are sourced directly from the artists home places, mindful of the lifecycle of those materials, their inherent qualities, and the possibilities they offer for both form and metaphor.
Using this exhibition invitation (specifically: work related to a sense of place, and who explore ideas about their geographic environment as an intentional response to the transient nature of clay) as a starting point, Rena and Casey designed a structure for collaboration with the intention of expanding their relationships to the material world and their local environments through creative exchange.
The site of exchange begins in each artist’s studio and backyard and the space in between, including a public walking path where the artists meet regularly. By passing ideas, sketches, writing, clay, and other materials back and forth, transitory nature is built into the creative process, informing the work and building meaning and points of connection.