The New West: The Natural Environment in the Digital Age, 2022
Sacramento State Library Gallery
The New West: The Natural Environment in the Digital Age
This two person exhibition, shown at the Sacramento State University Library Gallery, included work by both Terry Peterson and Torreya Cummings. This expansive installation gave each artist the opportunity to reflect on the environment in this hyperdigital age. For Peterson this work served as the final chapter of the mummified trout’s journey, and, since the show was rescheduled twice due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, space to explore elements of that uniquely difficult and unexpected season.
In Riding Chronic Isolation, the viewer encounters a melodic series of bell tones created by electric actuators striking saw blades beneath the breathing canopy of a Tyvek forest. A central ghost-like figure perches above a tangle of fire damaged cedar which resembles the jumbled masses of driftwood left by winter storms in coastal streams. The fish head helmet slowly rises to reveal a spinning petrified toilet paper medallion where the rider’s face should be.
Riding Chronic Isolation
As a salmon dies after reproducing, Skin Deep may ultimately be the culmination of a seven-year journey working with the imagery of the mummified trout from Burial Ground. This layered work references the salmon fishing industry of California’s north coast, drawing the viewer in with the sparkle of spinning lures and an unexpected rainbow glow cast by a rotating prism. The central salmon, a shell of itself over a reproduction of itself, speaks to the stratified exploitation of natural resources and the latex fish “skins” pulled from the 6-foot 3D-printed trout presented in the earlier work Redd, have lost much of their original visual information through the duplication process.
Skin Deep
Small kinetic works often serve as material studies for Peterson’s larger installations. These works act as the seeds for the rest of the body and in them the viewer finds its broader themes distilled into more bite-sized portions.
