Armstong/Ward installations

Saturday I traveled to Tulsa with friends to view two collaborative installations, Failing Hearts and On the Line. The shows are up in the Ligget Studio and Living Arts Space on Kenosha Avenue.

Failing hearts (above) is “a collaborative installation by two artists dealing with issues of the heart — one, an emotional and poignant set of unopened letters that are filled with words that speak of a failing relationship, while the other deals strictly with the presence and form of the heart itself.” Joel Armstrong hung a myriad of his wire drawings, intermingled with wire words taken from the aforementioned letters. The letters were written by his late mother, and gallery goers were encouraged to take additional words from his parents’ dresser — part of the installation — and pin them to the walls.

Neil Ward contributed the cast calf hearts, sitting on the small shelves in the photo above. Each heart is cast using a different mixture of materials; every one unique in form.

Two doors down hung a show by the same artists titled On the Line. Armstrong is seen in the photograph above pointing out some of the clothing on the line, again drawn in wire. It is a beautifully arranged work, best viewed after dark. Ward’s cast eyeballs line the walls, “perhaps here the understood tendencies of voyeur and nosy neighbor.”

Both installations employ sound and are meant to draw the viewer in not just visually and emotionally, but experientially. The shows are up until the 29th of January.