Sterling Wells & Haena Yoo

In Maintain Disgust, their most recent collaborative work, the Los Angeles based artists investigate the difference between containment and maintenance, especially how containment creates stagnation by restricting flow. Using found and cultivated materials, the duo explores the structure of neoliberal globalization where unrestricted movement of products and materials across borders is promoted, while the movement of people is curtailed. They write: “ …there is a lot of access for people to be inside of a system, but where are the exits?”

This question takes form in a 4D model of the world as a political/cultural/geological ecosystem made from homemade vegetable-based plastics, cast-glass, repurposed shelving and interconnected plastic food containers. The produce containers are organized based on their design, the type of plastic they are made of, and by the country of origin indicated on the label. Some containers are sealed, with stagnating produce and water trapped inside. Other containers are open and connected to make a system circulating air and moisture.

If this system can be maintained, water vaporizes in a thermal core and condenses in a maquette of the heavens, passing through a maze of plastic, vegetables and cultural and humidity indicators along the way. Many of these indicators are made by Wells and Yoo using home-made mycelium, milk and corn based plastics to form a responsive vocabulary populating their model world. This work is profoundly disgusting and oppressive, despite its playful and provisional construction. Ultimately, the artists remind us that these containers have holes to allow for air circulation which keeps fruit fresh.

Sterling Wells received his MFA from Art Center College of Design in 2017, and his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2007. He has recently presented work at Vernon Gardens (Vernon, CA), Metropolitan Structures (Baltimore, MD), a Manhattan law firm, Lana’s (Brooklyn, NY), and American Medium (Brooklyn, NY).

Haena Yoo received her MFA from Art Center College of Design in 2017 and her BFA from Ewah Woman’s University in Seoul, South Korea in 2013. A recipient of a 2018 Emerging Artist Grant from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation, Yoo recently exhibited in the Greater Los Angeles MFA exhibition at California State University Long Beach, the New Wight Biennial at UCLA, and La Croix Gallery in Pasadena, CA.