Re-Surface            Gray Contemporary          Houston             12.09.2020

The exhibition Re-Surface focuses on Sarah Elise Hall's interest in the ubiquitous nature of non- biodegradable plastics such as containers, bins, disposable packaging etc and how these anthropogenic materials are embedding themselves into our geologic record as a layer of plastic sediment and hybrid plastiglomerate rock. This exhibition was envisioned as a processed-based work which further imagines a future geologic narrative that includes fossilized plastic waste.

Hall has explored this idea using her studio as a micro-environment, drawing parallels between the environment of her studio and the activities within, to our larger environment. The studio floor, which is transplanted into the exhibition space, is intended to stand in for our larger environment.

Three interconnected elements comprise the exhibition:
1) A series of wall-mounted relief sculptures that Hall thinks of as fossils. They are cast from discarded/recycled plastic containers and reveal in this phase of existence a process of erosion;
2) An installation of part of her studio floor that the relief sculptures were fabricated on;
3) A series of unique collograph prints pulled from sections of the Studio Floor and work surfaces.

(A collograph print is made from a print plate with different textures, and the textures in this case are created from spills and scrapes that occur during studio work. The printing process is a combination of intaglio and relief.)

The relief sculptures, the installed studio floor and the collograph prints refer to each other and to the studio's history. This self-referential loop is also meant to connect Re-Surface to larger themes about our despoilation by industrial refuse of our environment, and the nature of the trace-evidence, - what we leave behind.