Carlye Packer is pleased to present  Role Play, an exhibition of new works by Los Angeles-based artist Claire Chambless, opening Saturday, March 30th, 6 - 9 pm. On view from March 30th to April 27th.

In Chambless’s laced rib cages, sarcomic dollhouses, and dissected chairs, one finds found or selected objects subjected to the same alchemical pirouettes as materials we might more commonly think of as mediums for sculpture. Combining found objects and materials sourced from diverse sites such as hardware stores and movie sets, Chambless’ sculptures explore autobiography, monumentality, and the formal qualities of familiar objects.

The works reconfigure or remix semiotic systems at multiple strata simultaneously using a limited visual language of culturally-loaded symbols. In Role Play, the following materials were used: Bone, pearl, latex, oyster shell, spears from the set of Gladiator (2000), mattress pad, wood, and foldable tailgating chairs with mesh beer holders. Chambless is interested in how objects make and remake each other, how people make and remake each other, how the world comes into being and is reproduced.  In Role Play, there is no difference between a found object and a material, between sculpture and the human body, works are choreographed in a score that could be ever changing.

At once deeply personal and universally resonant, her materially intricate works are both parafictional allegories and theatrical ’situations’ or ‘sets’ that invite the viewer to participate in rethinking various aspects of contemporary culture, including: digital avatarism, libidinal economy, style/fashion and the spatial politics of architecture and place.The result are sculptural objects that are essentially stable, but that perform as brittle or in a state of partial decay evidenced by the yellow hues, splitting, cracking, and flaking just below Chambless’s sculptural surfaces.

CLAIRE CHAMBLESS (b.1989 Houston, TX) is a Los Angeles based interdisciplinary artist working primarily in sculpture. Her most recent research centers on the ways haunting and cultural melancholia are sublimated into ecstatic experiences, ranging from the religious to the psychedelic.

Chambless received her BA at Davidson College and her MFA at the California Institute of the Arts. Recent exhibitions include: Davidson College, Charlotte, NC; Fellows of Contemporary Art (FOCA), Los Angeles, CA; Sargents' Daughters, Los Angeles, CA; MAK Center for Art & Architecture Mackey Apartments, Los Angeles, CA; Oolong Gallery, San Diego, CA; Office Space Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Wonzimer, Los Angeles, CA; The End, Atlanta, GA; Flux Factory, New York, NY; La MaMa Gallery, New York, NY; the New Wight Biennial at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA; and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, Atlanta, GA. She has been supported by the City of Atlanta, Fulton County Arts and Culture Council, Walthall Fellowship, the James G. Pepper Scholarship, and the Lillian Disney Scholarship, among others. Her work has been featured in Artforum online, Artillery, Tzvetnik, LA Weekly, Burnaway and ArtsATL, among others. Her work was most recently acquired by the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA.