(Re)place is a collaboration between artist Brandon Lomax and the California Botanic Garden’s past, present and future. Sculptural works will be shown at various stages of completion from fully-fired clay works that are as durable as stone as well as unfired works that are more vulnerable to the weather and elements of the Botanic Gardens. With guidance from the garden’s horticultural specialists, Lomax embedded some works with native plant species. Throughout the duration of the exhibit, unfired clay works will disintegrate and rejoin the soil, their once solid forms replaced by new plant species.
The selected works suggest the impermanent transience of population diversity within a given place. Some lasting far longer than others, the fired works will serve as monuments to sustainability, while others represent the natural cycle of selection and species dominance.
Referencing multiple meanings of place, the exhibit becomes the site of restoration, substitution and belonging as it celebrates diversity in all forms: class, race, gender, sexuality, religion, etc. The show reminds us that we are here because we are vital contributors. The artist’s hope is that we humans can celebrate our own biodiversity, and work together to create a more symbiotic relationship with our earth in this place, and every other.
Revised closing date 30 April 2022:
Artist Brandon Lomax will be de-installing his (Re)place exhibition one month early due to a recent inclusion in the prestigious upcoming exhibition entitled Symbiosis at Berkshire Botanical Garden curated by Beth Rudin DeWoody.
The seed infused sculptural experiments will remain on site to proceed with their disintegration as their botanical descendants continue to grow and replace them. These sites will remain marked with garden signage throughout the summer.
(Re)place is sponsored by:
Linda and Paul Des Marais
Randall and Janell Lewis
Brandon Lomax is a sculptor and installation artist whose immersive experiences transport viewers through time and space, and back into themselves. His work is process-driven, informed by ecology and artifact and rooted in anthropological study.
Lomax’s site-specific public exhibitions punctuate time by encapsulating history into the rhythm of natural, daily cycles. He engages with ideas of logic, inequality and empathy, and strives to remind participants of their place within the cosmos and beyond.
Lomax has exhibited with galleries and art fairs both domestic and international, and his work is held in numerous private and institutional collections, including The Bunker in West Palm Beach and the California Botanic Garden. He currently resides on the West Coast of Ireland, where he is studying the formations, flora and fauna of the glaciated karst landscape of the Burren.
Website: www.brandonlomax.com
