Sally Carr: Train Robber

Bivy is thrilled to present “Train Robber,” the first solo exhibition and artist’s book by Anchorage-based artist Sally Carr. The artist has created this new body of work as part of Bivvy, Bivy’s inaugural artist residency.

What prompted this body of work are photo albums the artist inherited, which were only partially completed. These albums unfolds in the exhibition as a multidimensional photo album of its own, reflecting on the consequences and complications of gathering, stewarding, and transferring generational memories. According to Susan Sontag, “Photographs furnish evidence.” The authority of a photograph derives, in part, from its claim to have witnessed something, to offer a trace of a person, place, or moment that once existed. Yet Sontag remains suspicious of this authority: an image can appear to embody memory or truth while remaining inherently selective and constructed. Similarly, the artist asks us to consider what happens to memory as an image is repeatedly reproduced, transferred, and transformed. Is memory preserved through this process, or gradually dissolved? Does each successive medium bring the image into sharper focus, or does repetition instead produce a diluted, constructed clarity?

The exhibition includes nine oil paintings on paper stitched with wool thread and mounted on oak, focusing on zoomed areas of select photographs and display some of the qualities of memories: blurry, fragmented, ever-changing, moving; as well as a large-scale diptych on canvas.

“Pinched” are reproductions of the albums’ photo corners casted in plaster and placed in the gallery as an intuitive gesture. They were soaked in linseed oil until fully saturated and then exposed to sunlamps to oxidize the linseed oil, deepening the color and transparency, effectively forcing age onto the objects, simultaneously releasing a distinct smell in the gallery, perhaps activating new memories through smell.

“Dawnette’s” is the lightbox on the floor, in-effect, a light and settled piece featuring branches the artist made by etching the background of the photo into glass using a chemical process, an additional attempt to move in and out of focus through continuous replication.

The artist’s book, also titled “Train Robber,” is published by Bivy in conjunction with the exhibition. The publication includes original writing by the artist, where anecdotal stories are retold multiple times. The book launch is on Saturday, October 17, from 6–7 PM.