PASSAGE is an installation that continues the series of BROKEN WORLDS. It is made of broken re-cycled beverage, vitamin bottles, stones, industrial glue and steel wire. The bottles are broken and repurposed to form a long sloping shape. The lighting is installed to play up the green shadows that appear from the broken glass, and a fan that gently moves some of the strands of glass.
Broken Worlds -
June Ahrens work address issues of loss, pain, fragility, danger and survival. Her work is obsessive in spirit, and uses reclaimed or re-purposed everyday objects.
In her latest series she uses broken acrylic mirrors, broken jars and bottles. Many of the jars have been collected from friends and family and create another layer of interaction between the participants and the artist.
Special lighting also plays a specific role in the work. The installations and individual pieces allow the viewer to become part of the sculpture as light throws reflections back and the person can see both viewers and their surroundings. The pieces create formal and conceptual tensions between absence and presence, certainty and doubt.
The jar/bottle pieces were broken and re-created to make new shapes and forms. Their gestures take on an anthropomorphic quality with an added sense of reality. The shadows cast by these forms add another dimension to the installations and provide a way to integrate form and concept, going beyond language, exposing conditions, which are not always obvious but are always present.
In Depth -
You can describe a wave as no beginning and no end, birth and death………Looking deeply, we can see that the waves are at the same time water…….seeking there own true nature…..the nature of nondiscrimination, of no birth, of no death, of no being and of no non-being.” - Thich Nhat Hanh
Review: “...and installations such as June Ahrens’s “In Depth,’’ in which a rotating light over a floor covered in mirror shards casts a spectacle of reflections on the wall…..” - Cate McQuaid Boston Globe Correspondent / September 11, 2009
Our Shrinking World -
Normally my work is created for an interior space; however when the opportunity at Chesterwood Sculpture Park presented itself I decided to take up the challenge and create my first outdoor piece,”Our Shrinking World” . My sculpture reflects the contrast between “The American Dream”, and today’s economic crises. Although small in scale, its message is monumental in scope. The surface of the broken acrylic mirror will reflect the beauty of the park, but also challenge the viewer’s state of security and high light the vulnerability that all of us may feel.
Review: “...….June Ahrens built a small house out of mirror shards and set it in the forest. The piece, “Our Shrinking World,’’ is almost invisible from a distance, camouflaged by reflection, and even up close it shimmers with leaves. But despite its beauty, its construction speaks of illusion, sharp edges, and danger….” Cate Mc Quaid , Boston Globe
Hiding in Plain Site -
9/11 changed my life as I knew it and impacted that of millions of others. In response to that event, Hiding in Plain Site elicits feelings of danger, anger, loss, and vulnerability. Still and film images of 9/11, as presented through mass media, left us with lasting imprints of that day.
A site-specific installation, Hiding In Plain Site is a private performance that is physically and creatively challenging, and changes with each new installation, incorporating broken mirrors and rotating light. The surface of this installation produces fragmented images as if to contain and absorb them. The rotating light may be viewed as ambiguous, bringing attention to ourselves or others at the moment we see the reflections or, perhaps, acting as a trigger to generate past experiences.
This installation also invites one to consider the open-endedness of the work as a possible need for social ritual and political discourse. Today, the "reflections" continue to embrace us individually as well as those in the world around us.
I have
created a series of work that continues to incorporate
everyday materials such as air conditioner filters, insulation
foam, felt, hot glue, screening, paper, pins and nails.
Working with one's hands on these materials enriches the experience
and breathes life into the soul.
There is
more exploration of texture, and shifts in color and
surface. The demarcation between sculpture, painting and collage
is blurred, deliberately to examine and address the spirit
inherent inside each piece.
Color has begun to play
a more important role in the Today's Tomorrow series. The material
engages me and inherent in that is the color. I find that it
stimulates my creativity and this new work is my response.
You may click on each image to begin a slide show of all my current
work.
Many of these works use black, white or
a combination of both as the palette.
A restricted
palette forces one to recognize the subtle nuances
within structure and color.
My work examines deep internal and external
forces, exposing the residue of life’s
experiences.
My hope is that the viewer can experience a connection, a
recognition, and a reawaking
through the integration of these works.
When additional colors are introduced
they engage the viewer’s attention on another level.
The use of these colors stimulates certain areas, while
leaving others quiet.
