Traces
by
David
Cogorno
Grewing up in St. Louis, MO, moving around the midwest, and also working in Italy and Peru, Cogorno has developed a strong sense of place in the natural world. He states that nature is his escape, that it's his "haven from chaos, a place to focus, and my greatest source of inspiration. Rather than merely trying to copy a certain location, my current work is a reflection and culmination of many of the spaces and landscapes I have developed a connection with.
By recreating the location I relive and retrace the experience that I had". He also draws inspiration from the various places and locations that hold special meaning to different cultures, groups of people, and even individuals. He says that "an attachment to a place can develop naturally, for instance, while viewing a beautiful or unusual landscape. Attachment can also come about through events in a culture, or, in many cases, can be a combination thereof. Whatever happenstance made, or continues to make, a location unique, it is the experience of authentic human attachment to a location that all people relate to."
For this exhibition, Cogorno has created a ceramic installation that flows horizontally across the gallery's walls and ungulates throughout the space. Traces conjures up the ideas of geographical locations, topographical landscapes, and the exploration of . Cogorno reconstructs the intangible realm of thought-space and exploration of one's self into a wonderfully articulated sculpture that seems to move just as freely throughout Plenum as the mind. Cogorno says that this installation "stems from my experiences and interactions with places I have explored and felt a connection with. I take experience, memory, and a sense of place and blend them together. The end result: a collage of remembered landscapes, and a culmination of times and locations. The portals are snap shots of places and through them, and the constructed and piecemealed landscape, I retrace my own personal experiences in this body of work", and that "through the creation of composite and sometimes fantastical landscapes, [he] relives, retraces, and experiences anew, places [he] have been. Each topographical line relates to a step taken in an actual landscape or at the very least, an imagined, idealized, or otherwise self-constructed landscape built from memory".
Cogorno received his BA in Ceramics at Drury University and went on to earn his MFA in Sculpture from the University of Kansas in 2010. Cogorno is currently based out of Springfield, MO, and is teaching at Drury.
*Opening Reception on April 5th from 6:00p-10:00p*