September 9 – October 22, 2023
Allison Cekala, Untitled, from Salt Works
Allison Cekala is an observer. Like many artists, the Mainer latches onto an idea, image or fact and brings it to the viewer’s attention.
For Cekala this comes in the form of painting, photography, installation and video work. In 2016, Cekala “discovered white mountains by chance out of [her] car window in Boston, seduced by raking light on a white, crystalline material shaped by wind, rain, and heavy machinery.” The artist’s striking view of a mundane material led to a months-long project to find the salt’s origin and document its movement.
Volland is pleased to share photographs from Salt Series, as well as Cekala’s film Fundir (to melt), which records how salt on the streets of Boston have their start in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.
Stills from Fundir
Cekala made clear in conversations that her work is not politically motivated, but simply comes from questioning her surroundings. The miners in Fundir enjoyed the piece. The visuals and sounds share a language that many can grasp, highlighting a fascinating story without the aid of a voiceover. Cekala’s video displays a photographer’s approach, and the artist’s careful editing makes the piece immersive.
Chile is admittedly far from Kansas and the Flint Hills physically, but working the land unites the two. Harvesting limestone to build structures above and below ground has been a practice since the early settler days and can be found in arched-roof stone cellars throughout Wabaunsee County and neighboring counties. Today, Kansas limestone is shipped throughout the United States for building projects, and in 2019, British artist Andy Goldsworthy and his team began laying Flint Hills stone for the artist’s Walking Wall installation at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
Works from Salt Series, all Untitled
The human-made eroded salt seen in Fundir end up in piles that mirror the landscape of the Atacama Desert. These miniature ranges are built and depleted continuously, a sort of microcosm of the larger forces at play in a condensed timeframe. In Cekala’s photographs, the context of these accumulations is deliberately removed, leaving the viewer to examine only the pile. The technique also focuses our attention a mundane collection of things, an idea the artist is interested in beyond salt. The Salt Series photographs in this exhibition are a selection from a larger body of work. All are untitled and were made in 2016, the same year as Fundir.
A L L I S O N C E K A L A
is an artist and educator living midcoast Maine. Her work, which includes photography, film/video, painting, and installation, is deeply rooted in observation and the experience of time. She co-founded and organizes The Rockland Observationalists, a collective of artists in midcoast Maine devoted to making and exhibiting observational work together. Cekala holds an MFA from School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and a BA from Bard College in Photography and Environmental Studies and a teaching certificate through the Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University. Her work has been supported by the LEF Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the MacDowell Colony, the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, the Cary Center for Ecosystem Studies, the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, and the Monson Arts Artist in Residence Program.
