"Subcutaneous Truth" (2010), by Katelyn Inman is one of the 17 pieces included in the show “Memento Vivre (You Have to Live),” on view through June at the Tripphammer Mall Ithaca Bakery. Image provided
The mixed-media artist Katelyn Inman makes magic out of the mundane. In her hand, cast-off items — sticks and bones, trinkets, bric-a-brac — are transformed into pieces that retain their history while evoking new meanings. Her current show, “Memento Vivre (You Have to Live),” on view through June at the Tripphammer Mall Ithaca Bakery, has the air of a memorial service, both celebration and funeral: her work is rooted in the past with its sights fixed on the future.
With the shrewd eye of a collector, the narrative voice of the finest storyteller and the subtlety of a collagist, Inman creates mixed-media work that draws viewers into an intricate and layered universe. The show’s 17 pieces, which were all made between 2008 and the present, echo Rauschenberg’s assemblages, Joseph Cornell’s boxes, and other Twentieth Century artists mindful of the life of objects.
“Subcutaneous Truth,” for instance, deploys match sticks, bubble wrap, biology illustrations, gold leaf and Inman’s own writing for a piece that tells a story that, though ambiguous, is wholly her own. The piece seems to have layers upon layers, with a yellow gouache background, crayon and ink scribbled words, pieced together phrases, and splotches that sometimes resemble ink, and at other times blood. A cut-out hand holds the brief text of a typewritten proclamation: “ESTEEM, SHAME, PRIDE,” while elsewhere the delicately pasted phrases “Pity is sympathy with pain,” and “better the actual evil than the fear of it” peel back to reveal more text. It’s only through close examination that the piece’s title is revealed behind a strip of bubble wrap.
“I find things that have their own story and their own past, and I put them together in a way that enables people to see things as part of a new story,” Inman said at the opening for her show. “I love finding things that are 50 years old, 80 years old, and piecing them together, the way a poet does with words.”
Inman’s universe isn’t hermetic, but each of the 17 pieces in the show does offer a discrete world with multiple stories or narratives. “I think that the work is very deep-rooted in melancholy emotions, rooted in what I was going through at the time. So for some, there might be an air of punishment or retribution reflected in the piece. But it’s subject to different interpretations.”
Inman harvests her found objects at random from yard sales and trash bins, but she also purposefully seeks out specific items. “My mom works at an antique store, so I’ve grown up with antiques and curiosities my entire life,” Inman said. “I love yard sales and thrift stores, and I find stuff in the free bin at yard sales and things that people don’t want at all. I found a barn where I was able to find a lot of bones, and my dad goes hiking and brings them back to me, and I just bought a whole lot of bones off of EBay.”
“Joseph Cornell is my idol, I saw a lot of his work in museums before I even got into this way of working,” Inman added. Raised in Ithaca, Inman entered Ithaca College with the intention to study photography, but she was moved by a sculpture class to explore three-dimensional work. “All of these old things went together so well, and I’ve always collected antique strange little items, and since I have all of these things, I figured I would put them together.”
Inman is also a poet, and she considers her collages akin to her writing. “I love to find really interesting words and metaphors and piece them together,” she said. ”I guess I think of that as a collage of words.” But if words have fixed but not immutable meanings, the pieces in Memento Vivre splay out like bodies, like objects— entire universes of possibilities.
The oldest piece in the show is “Superstition” (2008), a photograph of a light box Inman is hesitant to display publicly. A black clay hand holds a delicate yellow bird; two tiny totems sit aside the piece, and golden wings and a large “S” above it give the work an almost religious grandeur.
"Superstition" (2008), by Katelyn Inman
The clay hand is Inman’s own, cast from a kit. The bird, gripped so tightly it’s unclear whether it’s being protected or crushed, lends a lifelike quality to the piece that seems to be slipping between reality and fantasy. “I’ve always had a big thing for religious iconography,” Inman said, peering at her piece. “I love old illuminated texts because of the gold and the bright colors; I like to make things into altars.”
There’s melancholy in the work, but it’s hopeful as well. With urgent titles such as “Save Your Sight,” “Shed No Tear” and “Cut the Ties,” the work admonishes the viewer while encouraging action. The title of the show, memento vivre, of course stands in opposition to the Latin phrase memento mori, or “remember your death,” or “remember your mortality.” Instead, Inman encourages us to live—to remember to live, or in the artist’s translation, “You Have to Live.”
It is altogether fitting the show is hung at the newest outpost of The Ithaca Bakery in the Tripphammer Mall. The Café is the former home of Hope’s Way, and just as the owners of the new establishment have retained elements from its former self, Inman’s work recycles and reuses found objects to create work that resonates with its past. And though “Memento Vivre” will only be on view through the end of June, the memory of the work is sure to float in the space for far longer.