Ampersand is pleased to present Trenches, a solo exhibition of video work and mixed media pieces by Portland artist Misha Capecchi. The short video, Trenches, is about extreme dis-balance, frenetic tension, a daze and then a splitting and eventual multiplication of personhood. The handmade objects being exhibited, however, are not collateral artifacts from the making of the film itself. Instead, they are hypothetical fetish objects made from the perspectives of the two main characters, masks and tapestries that exist beyond the framework of the video in a world whose laws we can only guess at. The impetus for the work comes in part from an experiment that was conducted in the early 1980s by a molecular genesist. In the experiment, the structure of a mouse's inner ear was modified using gene targeting, resulting in a mouse that looked completely normal but ran in continual circles due to a complete loss of physical balance. Less a critical or favorable stance on the experiment itself, Capecchi is more fascinated by the frenetic reaction from lay people and scientists alike caused by the uncanny results of the experiment - perhaps its implication that a loss of balance can be caused by subtle genetic or, by extension, cultural alterations. Capecchi is equally fascinated by cargo cults, a phenomenon specific to Malaysia in which cultures previously untouched by advanced technology began to worship American objects they were exposed to during WWII. Her objects, or "artifacts," point to the strange relationship that is formed between stories about cargo cults and their implied validation of our own unsatiated desires within consumer culture. "While cargo cults live in a world of the handmade, they worship the mass produced," notes Cappechi. "We, in turn, live in a world of the mass produced but more and more covet the handmade." This dichotomy, much like the off-balance circling of genetically altered mice, is epitomized in the trenches made by the circular stumbling of Capecchi's fictional characters.  

Misha Capecchi lives and works in Portland, Oregon. She received her MFA from the Maryland Institue College of Art, Mount Royal School of Art, Baltimore. Her work has been shown in several solo and group exhibitions in a wide range of mediums, including printmaking, textiles and film. This is her first solo show with the gallery.

Is this real?, 2013
Mixed Media
17 x 8 in.
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