Fish Head 2019
Artspace 1616, Sacramento, CA
Peterson’s 2019 solo show, Fish Head, featured a mixture of four large-scale kinetic sound sculptures juxtaposed with 10 intimate mixed-media wall reliefs. This body of work is an obsessive exploration of the mummified trout created in the work Burial Ground. The actual trout carcass was digitally scanned and used to create 3D printed clones of various sizes from 3 inches to 6 feet in length. After making a silicone mold of the fish, Peterson also reproduced castings in rubber, resin, and plaster. This excessive synthetic multiplication of nature is set within a comparatively analog soundscape: nails being picked up by electro magnets and dropped on the concrete floor, along with a two note whistle medley created by air pressure being forced through tubes by water. One part calming, one part haunting, this multi-sensorial experience encourages viewers to consider modern manipulations of life cycle and inheritance.
A Redd is the nest created by a salmon or trout in a riverbed where it lays its eggs and spawns. The fish hovers over the nest and protects the redd until the baby salmon hatch. For this work, the mummified trout was artifically spawned by creating exact duplicates in 3D printed plastic and urathane rubber castings. Nails at the very bottom of the structure were are picked up by electromagnets and dropped in a timed sequence to create a rythmic chiming sound.
Redd
Growing up on the California Coast, Peterson often heard the sound of the whistle buoy from outside the mouth of Fort Bragg’s fishing harbor. Just as ocean waves push air through a whistle buoy, the gentle and haunting sound created by this work was accomplished in the same way, with water creating air pressure as the tubes rhythmically raise up and down. A tire innertube harkens back to days spent abalone diving, now a distant memory. Once a way of life, this natural resource has been overfished to the point that harvesting is no longer permmitted on the North Coast.
Buoy
Raised on a Rhododendron nursery, Peterson witnessed the hot house cloning cultivation of plants from cuttings to full grown replicants. This process of cloning became a main theme in the show and in particular this work, with the likeness of the Burial Ground trout being reproduced, or grown, over and over again with many different processes.
