"The Butterfly Effect"

Zoe Koke is a Canadian artist who recently relocated to Austin, Texas, from Los Angeles, California. Koke creates artworks in a variety of mediums including photography, painting, sculpture and film. Koke’s artworks subtly dissect power dynamics inherent in constructed and natural space. She works sculpturally in a Surrealist manner, through collecting, reconfiguring and altering found objects as well as directly replicating natural forms from her everyday. Her photo based practice resists the trend of making photographs in the studio to prioritize photography’s direct function of documenting life. By recording uncanny scenes from her environment, with little alteration, Koke aims to challenge photography’s origin as a tool for recording evidence, and its systematic use in propaganda, colonization and exploitation. Her work is foremost preoccupied with building atmosphere from where diverse readings can proliferate. Language, health, democracy, collective trauma, and impermanence are prominent themes in her work. Zoe Koke also works in independent film as a costume and production designer. The films she has designed have premiered at the Berlinale, NYFF, TIFF and Rotterdam with two films premiering at TIFF and NYFF this fall. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University and a Masters of Fine Arts from University of California Los Angeles. Zoe Koke regularly writes about art and is a long-term contributor to The Editorial Mag. Her work has been exhibited in Canada, the United States and Australia.

The Butterfly Effect showcases seven photographic works, and two sculptural works by Zoe Koke ranging in size from 10 x 16 inches to 36 x 52 inches. The Butterfly Effect is a term in chaos theory, which refers to small events having large effects, in general, and in weather specifically. This term came about through Edward Lorenz’s research in weather, and was popularized by the example of a tornado, its exact path and formation, as connected to the distant flapping of butterfly wings weeks earlier. Recently, meteorologists discovered that monarch butterflies migrate in the large shape of a butterfly, understanding their identity and using each other for protection like schools of fish. Simultaneous to this, psychologists now know that trauma is inherited physiologically, and is even more difficult to treat than was previously realized. If we biologically carry historical trauma, understanding the need for togetherness and healing is more pressing. Thereby the butterfly effect offers hope, suggesting that small acts of kindness can reverberate worldwide, and that even one single gesture or thought can have a profound effect culturally. This new body of work aims to bring together seemingly disparate moments, objects and images to meditate on interconnectedness, a shared sense of loss, and the impact small gestures have to inform healing and repair within a precarious social climate and a moment of ecological collapse. An image of a discarded butterfly collection from the 1950’s, a lonely mannequin depicted in a shop window, a suspended animal trap and an image of a bombed Sicilian palace ceiling in a state of repair all indicate a shared sense of fragility, in connection to history and the urgent need for healing and community. -Zoe Koke

* Opening Reception: October 10, 2019, 6:00 – 8:00 pm

* Gallery hours: Tuesday – Friday 10:00 am – 5:00 pm

Allison Thompson Art and Interiors - www.allisonthompsonstudio.com<... - www.spacetospace.co

Zoe Koke - www.zoekoke.com