Serra Victoria Bothwell Fels
Bad Boundaries

(Bad boundaries) expected lines misbehaving
(Bad boundaries) pushing through cracks becoming
(Bad boundaries) portals instead of fixed points
(Bad boundaries) solids becoming spills
(Bad boundaries) it’s tautness revisited
(Bad boundaries) making a problem of being contained
(Bad boundaries) confusing should and won’t, can and don’t

Bothwell Fels uses principles of magical realism as sculptural directives, fading regular, mundane places into possibilities both dystopic and hopeful––a sense that there is something beyond the physical structures of our everyday environments. One could say that Bothwell Fels actively courts bad boundaries. It’s a rogue approach that gets soupy and stretchy, messy and compiled. There’s an implication of expected action that fails to appear. Or an assumption that there should be nothing where there is something.

Bad boundaries: are happening in ways that anger me.
Bad boundaries: are happening in ways that hearten me.

In a time when extreme boundaries are being drawn, we are looking to make spaces that court an openness to what’s beyond ourselves, to realities outside our expectations.

How do we muddy these waters? Or clear up the silt blocking our view?

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Like most of Bothwell Fels’s work, the works in this exhibition were context-responsive. The existance of the space, and invitation to work within its paramaters, are the elements from which these works spring.