Installation view: Breaking Roots, 2010

Installation view: Breaking Roots, 2010

Installation view: Breaking Roots, 2010

Breaking Roots (detail)

In Breaking Roots, sculptor Shannon Gagne addresses the fragility and cyclical nature of life. Personal and universal narratives intertwine as Gagne blends the artifacts of motherhood with basic elements of the earth. Melted baby jars and food containers holding colorless clay sprout-like shoots within, spread across the gallery floor. The manipulated vessels extend to various areas of the gallery. The forms engage with the environment they inhabit, extending into corners, columns and partitions and converge with horn-like vessels fastened to the gallery wall. Delicate yet formidable, Gagne’s installation speaks to the constant tension that exists between beginning and end, renewal and decay, and permanence and the ephemeral.