This Anxious Earth
new work by Seth LeDonne
an online exhibition
Collapse
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
14”x11x”1.5”
available
A new world
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
14”x11x1.5”
available
Scattered thoughts no. 2: The novelty and necessity of continuing to grow and learn when it feels like it could all end tomorrow
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
30”x24x1.5”
🔴
Fate of the entire world or just all of its people
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
30”x24”x1.5”
available
A never ending stream of information
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, acrylic paint, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
14”x11”x1.5”,
available
R.I.P. The Old Normal
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
14”x11”x1.5”
available
R.I.P. Not Rilly Into Politics
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
14”x11”x1.5”
available
R.I.P. Excessiveness
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
14”x11”x1.5”
available
A digital grave-space
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
14”x11”x1.5”
available
Rich man’s grave (he took it all with him)
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, gilding leaf, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
14”x11”x1.5”
available
We love devices but they don’t love us back
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, acrylic paint, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
30”x24”x1.5”
available
What does it take for an idea to be golden?
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, dye, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
30”x24”x1.5”
🔴
Yr future self called to remind u not to be complacent
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
30”x24”x1.5”
available
Scattered Thoughts no 1: Secretly wondering if the world will last long enough for my kids let alone by grandkids
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel,
30”x24”x1.5”
🔴
High functioning anxiety
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
14”x11”x1.5”
available
Happy to be alive despite how odd everything is
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel,
30”x24”x1.5”
available
Scattered thoughts no. 3: I feel like a piece of shit and I don’t know what to do about it
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
14”x11”x1.5”
available
Scattered thoughts no. 4: It’s so easy to give up hope but please don’t
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
14”x11”x1.5”
available
Scattered thoughts no. 5: Tell ‘em how you really feel
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, dye, vinyl-based paint on birch panel
14”x11”x1.5”,
available
Living in opposition to fucked up bullshit
alcohol-based ink, acrylic medium, canvas, vinyl-based paint on birch panel,
30”x24”x1.5”
available
Statement
Inspired by the last six months of life on our blue planet, Seth LeDonne’s upcoming online art exhibition, This Anxious Earth, will feature word-based paintings inspired by the cocktail of climate crisis, rising societal tension, and a global pandemic. The artworks ask what we’ve all been thinking: Will society collapse? And if so, will there ever be a new world?
In This Anxious Earth, LeDonne renders bewilderment, privacy, and confession through hidden, distorted, and re-built pieces of text. The paintings in this body of work call into question the facade of normalcy we’ve become accustomed to, while offering humor—however dark—as a coping mechanism.
Bio
Seth LeDonne creates work that highlights the challenges and profoundness of everyday life. His recent bodies of work have examined rural identity and masculinity, reliance on technology, our relationship with the natural world, apocalyptic poetry, and mental wellness. His works often contain original, hand-written poetic compositions. Attention to the details that arise in rejecting perfectionism is a thematic and aesthetic element of his work. LeDonne has exhibited his paintings, drawings, and installations in solo exhibitions at Bunker Projects, The Mine Factory, and The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and he was selected to create artwork for the Museum Shop at Fallingwater. He currently lives and works in New York City.
On LeDonne’s Work, Right Now
One aspect of Seth’s work that invariably strikes me, when some work of his and I find ourselves together, is that it presents its made-by-a-person qualities to me. But it does so in a way that is not proclaiming “I am an artwork made by a person,” but rather, “I’m something someone has spent time with.” The difference it seems to me is one of a person’s commitment to that particular something, rather than to “art”. That of course makes me curious about that something, and why that person committed themselves to it. Should I commit time to it myself?
The construction, design, etc. of these works is not disguised. One may appreciate this, or not. I do. I see painted letters, and I assume they were once more orderly, and so its natural for me then to try to work backwards—imaginatively working to reconstruct what it once may have been. The cuts, the lettering are not crisp and even, but: why should they be?
This process of working through what the thing may have been, in relation to what it is now, in front of me—this process is I would suggest not an uncommon one for a work of art. It’s at least one way we can make sense of what it is. I imagine the earlier life of this thing and how it got here, to me, like this. Part of what I get from this kind of reflection is that these works in particular, because of what they look like, present me with an analogy for thinking about many works of art generally.
It may be these works start us out by frustrating us with something not being exactly the way we might expect, and yet, time spent with them invariably proves to be rewarding. We re-situate ourselves, as it were.
Now if all this about this work happens also to sound a good deal like some optimism for how we are all living right now, I’d suggest we have a number of reasons to believe that’s not coincidental.
Craig Fox
September, 2020
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