LINNÉA GAD
RETURN OF THE MOLLUSK
November 1 - December 21, 2024

Works:

Repose, 2023
Welded steel 

67 x 33 1⁄2 x 16 inches


Belly, 2024

Lime mortar, oyster shells, lapis lazuli, goat hair, welded steel

27 1⁄2 x 11 1⁄2 x 16 inches


Belly, details

Protoconch, 2024

Cardboard, paper pulp, welded steel
 66 x 26 x 13 inches

Protoconch, detail

Eon Scape II, 2024

Oil and toner on wood panel

40 1⁄2 x 55 1⁄2 inches


Mantle, 2024
Welded steel, amber glass
47 x 16 x 13 inches

Mantle, detail

Molting, 2023

Glaze painting on porcelain tablet

11 3⁄4 x 9 1⁄2 x 1 1⁄2 inches


Sole, 2024

Welded steel, amber glass

60 1⁄2 x 16 1⁄2 x 12 1⁄2 inches


Sole, detail

Additional works:

Tepesi, 2023
Oil on wood panel
19 1⁄2 x 15 1⁄2 inches

Squish, 2024

Welded steel, amber glass 

14 x 8 1⁄2 x 6 inches

Delicate shell, Ant, Fox, Helix, Lagoon, Cat’s Eye, Rosette, Crab, Ring, Horsehead, and Tarantula: these are all examples of nebulae. My interest in nebulae was sparked one day returning home from the studio, still covered in lime dust. I saw a study claiming that calcium came to Earth from a supernova. The matter lining my skin and clothes—the calcium that forms oyster shells, limestone, teeth, and bones—is essentially stardust, once scattered across the universe.

The works included in Return of the Mollusk are all rooted in my sculptural exploration of lime, a material tied to both human creativity and destruction throughout history. On view is a series of works that involve shells and other protective materials: bark, cardboard, porcelain, and sheet metal. In my paper and metal sculpture Protoconch layers of pulp and slag grow over the piece, as barnacles on a ship’s hull— another example of calcium biomineralization. Ceramic works, Corolla, Butter and Slice, are made by dipping bark and cardboard in slip until a substantial clay crust is made around the original form. I approach sculpting in all these materials in a manner akin to how lime adheres to variations of itself, layering cumulatively, like a mollusk making its shell.

My focus has long been on the work of the mollusk and the structure it leaves behind. I feel a kinship between my own urge to make and the mollusk’s drive to build its shell – a thought echoed by Paul Valéry, who invokes the enigmatic creation of a seashell as a metaphor for the genesis of poetry.

I’m now beginning to consider the mollusk itself–the marine organism inside the shell, the transformative, malleable being, with its one adhesive foot, mantle, and lung. My attention to the mollusk has coincided with my interest in the nebula and I started to see one in the other. The nebula and the mollusk are both cloudlike without clear boundaries and they are both makers of calcite matter. Looking at black water photographs of young mollusks without shells rising to feed I have found whole galaxies and supernovas in their translucent, luminous bodies.

The mollusk, in its nebulous form, has come to me as amber—tree sap transformed over time and pressed into a stone-like gem. Unlike stone, amber is warm to the touch, and with its golden hue, it is the closest earthly thing to liquid sunlight. In Mantle and Sole, my sheet metal structures are filled with amber glass. The mollusk has returned.

The entrance shelf installation serves as a microcosm of the different materials and forms across my work. The array exemplifies my cyclical relationship to both form and physical matter. The gestures occur here at the smallest level, but are related at all scales, the largest being that of the universe.

I had always thought of nebulae as dead stars. As I learn more about them, I realize that they represent a dynamic cycle of stellar birth and death, an ongoing reconfiguration of matter, a reminder that there is no definitive end.

-Linnéa Gad

All photos by David Schulze