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[Miami, FL] Locust Projects presents The patience of ordinary things, a newly commissioned installation by Miami-based artist Kerry Phillips that delves into the complex emotions and experiences surrounding aging, memory loss, and the essence of human connection. In a bold leap in her practice, Phillips immerses us in the deeply personal narrative of her aging parents' care through interplay of video, moving projections, and spatial design that evokes an emotive response and fosters a communal space for shared reflections on life, loss, and legacy.

The exhibition opens at Locust Projects on Saturday, May 18, 2024 with an Opening Night Reception from 6 to 9pm.

In a significant departure from the work featured in her recent solo Bass Museum show in 2023, Phillips’ massive, site-specific installation in Locust Projects 2,600 sq ft Main Gallery features first-person narrative video exploring the minutiae of daily life through the repetitive, seemingly mundane tasks, such as folding laundry or playing with cards, which anchor those experiencing memory loss to the present. 

At the heart of the exhibition, visitors will encounter a moving video projection traversing the gallery, casting abstract ink wash landscapes on perimeter walls, circling a long-held “heirloom”, symbolizing the abstract fluidity of memory and time. 

Beyond its visual and interactive elements, the exhibition serves as a meditation on the narratives we construct to make sense of aging and mortality. The real difficulty of dealing with one of our great modern taboos. The patience of ordinary things provides a deeply intimate perspective on the profound themes of aging, memory, and human experience, a modern memento mori, probing the shifting perspectives and changing dynamics of family, community, and self-awareness, offering a space for visitors to confront their fears, hopes, and expectations around death and remembrance, reflecting on the universal threads that connect us across the temporal divide.

About the Artist

Kerry Phillips is an installation artist whose artwork borders on performance and social practice. Phillips’ work with found objects is intuitive, often site-specific, and steeped in remembrance and storytelling. She uses common objects in unexpected ways, working collaboratively with viewer-participants to reveal an exchange of value, the importance and limitations of memory, and the vitality of play.

Phillips earned an MFA from University of Arizona and has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including at the Orlando Museum of Art, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Boca Raton Museum of Art, and Bridge Red Projects. Her most recent solo exhibition, Between the mundane and the miraculous was held at the Bass Museum August - October 2023.

She has exhibited and completed residencies in Ohio, Vermont, New York, North Carolina, and internationally in Berlin, Krakow, Mexico, and France. Her work is held in the collections of the Orlando Museum of Art, The Girls’ Club, and Mosquera Collections. Originally from Texas, Phillips works in Miami and, contrary to her family’s wishes, doesn’t paint pretty pictures. She is represented by LnS Gallery in Miami.