Underdonk

press release

Michael Sims

Opening reception April 27, Saturday, from 6-8PM
April 27 to June 3, Saturdays and Sundays, 1-6PM

Michael Sims’ sculptures are examinations of an object’s origin. They touch on its initial function and amplify it. The bicycle helmet grows into a larger, protective body and an ostrich egg doubles as a brick vault. The milk carton advertises green pastures, minus the cows and the farm typical of its packaging, and a shirt printed with tropical fish supports a pebbled beach. Earth’s beginning, for Sims, resides in laundry detergent bottles, helmets, Hawaiian prints. These forms, littered throughout our lives and memories, are so embedded in our intelligence that we frequently don’t examine their engineering. Sims’ alterations to these found objects reveal how our products touch on the universal. The vast, underwater life of the tropics is reduced to a pattern on our chest. The detergent Tide – that miraculous interaction between the ocean and moon – washes the shirt. The sea, the egg, nourishment, growth: Sims’ vision is not subversive but quiet. Beneath the thin, plastic layer suggestive of what it is to be human, he playfully uncovers a shared reality of all living things.

Curated by Priscilla Fusco

Michael Sims (b. 1988, Houston, TX) grew up in Vancouver, WA and received a Diploma from The Museum of Fine Arts Boston in 2011 and an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University School of Art in 2013. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn,

Priscilla Fusco (b. 1973, Montague, MA) grew up in Western Massachusetts and holds a BA in English from Barnard College and an MFA from Hunter College. She works with ceramics and fundraises for the Xerxes Society of Invertebrates by selling her conceptual art. She lives and works in Brooklyn.Bottom of Form