ABOUT ARCADIA DISRUPTED:
Arcadia Disrupted is a reckoning with the suburban circumstances of my youth. Emphasizing the myopic attitude of suburban consumption, I have collected and assembled artifacts from the natural world as well as the material excesses of capitalism, of which I am complicit, into new ideations of the built environment. This body of work reimagines my connections to the materials and entities associated with familial life, as my notions of home as a physical place and conceptual idea have evolved.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Leslie Drennan is a sculptor and visual artist based in Atlanta, Georgia. She graduated with a BS in Psychology from the University of Georgia in 2016 and is currently completing an MFA in Sculpture at Georgia State University. Leslie was selected by the Welch Foundation at Georgia State to participate in a residency at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts in May of 2023 and was the inaugural recipient of the Lui Shiming Scholarship for an outstanding graduate student in Sculpture in 2022. Her work has been exhibited regionally at the Atlanta Contemporary, Dalton Gallery at Agnes Scott College, Swan Coach House Gallery, Eyedrum, Blue Heron Nature Preserve, and Gallery One in Ellensburg, Washington.
THESIS ABSTRACT:
The suburban built environment sanitizes our relationship with the non-human world by flattening nature under the supersystem of capitalism. Plant and animal life are replaced by asphalt and strip malls, where our interactions with nature are managed into invisibility. More so, Suburbia reveals the psychological effect of divorcing materials from their source, making hasty consumption feel effortless and capital gain top priority. My own upbringing in the densely populated suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia shaped my definition of home as a complicated mix of frantic motion and quiet wandering. Arcadia Disrupted is a reckoning with the suburban circumstances of my youth. This body of work reimagines my connections to the materials and individuals I associate with domestic life, as my notions of home as both a concept and physical place have evolved away from the suburban ideal. I have collected and assembled artifacts from the natural world as well as the material excesses of capitalism, of which I am complicit, into new ideations of the built environment.