Patrick Cadenhead: Spring and Renewal
May 6th – June 9th, 2012, 7-9pm
The smell of an industrial laundromat is the first sensorial experience aspect to engage the viewers and passerby of Patrick Cadenhead’s Spring and Renewal at Open Source Gallery. Within this exhibit, Cadenhead creates a multi-sensory meditation on religion, laundry, and our denial of decay. Large sculptures caked in common cleaning products create the distinctive soapy smell, with a large fountain of suds amplifying the odor. This fountain, a large form resembling a washing machine, is active throughout the exhibit, constantly changing the physical appearance of the work.
The sculptures here consist of wooden panels caked in cleaning products such as Tide and Borax crystals. A speaker emitting the sounds of a Laundromat adds to the multisensorial experience of the exhibit. Cleanliness as a theme takes on a religious aspect with the white soap bubbles evoking thoughts of religious cleansing. The viewer can apply the smell and visual form of the exhibit to their own desires of washing away and beginning again.
Cadenhead has a BFA in sculpture from Pratt Institute and an MFA in sculpture and extended media from the Virginia Commonwealth University. He has given artist talks at both Mary Baldwin College and the Maryland Institute of Contemporary Art. Cadenhead has exhibited across the United States. In 2012, his After Image exhibit was shown in Baltimore. Recently he has also exhibited in Richmond, VA, as well as at the Kim Foster Gallery and ADA Gallery in New York.
