Ablaze (With Destruction and Abundance)
Adam DeSorbo: Ablaze (With Destruction and Abundance)
March 1- May 19, 2024
CFAR billboard project at 510 Oak Street, Eugene, OR 97403
Ablaze (With Destruction and Abundance) depicts ochre-tinted maple leaves nailed to wood planks that have been strengthened through a traditional Japanese charring process known as the Yakisugi method. The burned boards and maple leaves allude to transitional states, both benign and seasonal, and the more destructive forces of increasing wildfire activity. The embedded relationship between preservation and destruction as it relates to the Anthropocene brings our paradoxical tendencies as a species into full relief. The image is activated through original text by the artist, making explicit the process of grieving a burning world. The interaction between the image and the text proposes an embrace of our ecological cracking, the necessity to witness, the urge to preserve, and the radical act of finding joy while existing in the cracks.
This CFAR billboard project is supported by the University of Oregon Department of ARt’s Center for Art Research in conjunction with the exhibition series Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World.
Adam DeSorbo is an artist using photography, sculpture, and writing. Existing in the cracks of a breaking planet, Adam’s work is an act of witnessing the Earth in its struggle and abundance simultaneously. Through multiple means of witnessing and experiencing places in his work, a complicated yet meaningful relationship emerges that embraces paradoxes to embody and reconcile with the land. Adam holds a B.S. in Environmental Studies from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and is an MFA Candidate in Art at the University of Oregon.