SIMILITUDES
LORI TALCOTT

4/12 - 23/12 2021 

PORTABEL is proud to present Lori Talcott with the exhibition SIMILITUDES. Opening this Saturday, the exhibition features a new body of work, framed by the intimate and historic gallery space in Kirkeristen, Oslo.

Jewelers have long assumed the role of confidant and healer. Similitudes draws on this tradition, as well as the theory of Sympathetic Magic– the belief that once connected, an indelible tether remains that binds people, places, and objects across time and distance. Homeopathic practices stem from the Latin homeo, “same,” and pathos, meaning, “to suffer or feel emotion." It evokes the associative mode of thinking—meaning made through metaphor and similarities—which anchors this work. Like cures like. All healing can be found in the wound.

In the medieval period, the boundaries between material and immaterial were fluid, words and memories were thought of as objects, digested by, and residing in, the body. They had physical properties as well– texture and dimension. The pieces in “Similitudes” are made from an apothecary of materials– all considered to be intrinsically powerful. They are physical incantations made to protect, as well as cure and repair. The letter “A” was considered a powerful amulet, with the capacity to protect its wearer from both physical and metaphysical harm. It stood for the Latin phrase “Amor Vincit Omnia” (Love Conquers All Things), and the first letter of the invocation “Ave Maria” – an appeal to the divine for protection.  The Darkness that binds much of the work in Similitudes is a space of in-betweenness. It is a space of potential and generativity. These objects serve as a companion, and as consolation in these spaces of darkness and of unknowing.

Lori Talcott (1959) is a Seattle-based visual artist, the fifth generation in a family of watchmakers and jewelers. Through the format of jewelry, her work and research engage with contemporary theories on magic, the agency of objects, and the nexus of language and matter. Her performance projects explore the role of jewelry as a rhetorical device, and in this capacity, how it functions as an agent in rituals that negotiate social, temporal, and spiritual boundaries.

After her undergraduate studies in art history at Lund University and Washington State University (BA) and metal design at University of Washington (BFA), Talcott worked as an apprentice to a master silversmith in Norway. She later completed her graduate work in visual arts at Vermont College of Fine Arts (MFA). Talcott has received two Washington State Artist Trust Fellowships and an Arts Fellowship from the American-Scandinavian Foundation. Her work is in numerous private and public collections, including the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery. Talcott is a frequent visiting artist and critic in the United States and Europe, and for the past ten years she has held the position of Guest Lecturer in the graduate program at Rhode Island School of Design. She is currently a visiting professor at University of South-Eastern Norway.