DC Moore Gallery is pleased to present JoAnne Carson: Cosmic Chatter, the artist’s debut exhibition with the gallery. Working across two and three dimensions, with new paintings, related collages and drawings, and a large-scale sculpture, Carson’s new body of work offers exuberant visions of life on the cusp of another world.  

Over the last few years, JoAnne Carson has focused on the forms of trees, creating hybrid creatures that shift between human, plant, and animal. Evoking the ambiguity of life in the Anthropocene, where borders between natural and synthetic have collapsed, Carson invents new forms, each tree its own speculative universe. The trees are characters bestowed with agency and energy, projecting certain personalities or animistic power.

In 2011, Carson began cultivating an elaborate garden in Vermont, with topiaries, fruit trees, and perennials planted on a steep slope. When she first began gardening, she focused only on the area that she could view from the window, which framed the space as a composition. Functioning as immersive sculpture, laboratory, and a study for a painting, the life force of the garden has permeated Carson’s paintings.

The sculpture Chlorophyllia (2017) is a free-standing bouquet figure, a tree character from her paintings realized in three-dimensions. In contrast to the paintings, these floral forms are all in shades of white, resembling a fossilized or skeletal figure. The hybrid plant form is bursting with life, however, the monochrome palette also suggesting newness or potential transformation.