Stellar Drift, 2024
"Stellar Drift" connects Brent Cole’s interest in personal navigation and Jacinda Russell’s search for the unattainable. How do humans relate to the stars? How can a found object represent the farthest reaching places? Cole discovered the errant spheres after groundskeepers at a local high school removed hedges around the periphery of a field. Play was as important to the process in creating this series as it was to the game that produced the objects that the artists reinterpreted. Russell photographed the deterioration of the orbs - their cracked leather that exposed the seldom seen windings and their debris deliberately left on the backdrop. Cole drew into the surface of the photographs, carving patterns that imply the motion of comets in the night sky. During their period of stasis and neglect, these remnants of past sporting events lost their initial purpose. Their slow transformation revealed a system that resembled cosmic bodies that was more compelling to both artists.
