Covey Gong & Monique Mouton

Narratives have the capacity to change our perceptions and embodied experiences, even as they unfold in different forms—across the pages of a book, on stage in a theater, in the space of the gallery, or out in the world. In this exhibition by Covey Gong and Monique Mouton, prismatic artifacts illuminate the ever-shifting nature of the stories that mirror our reality. 

Mouton’s washes of color, brushstrokes, and tears of paper suggest dualities: between the abstract and concrete, image and non image, being and nonbeing. One wonders whether the intention of these works is to convey a figurative notion—an image, object, landscape or narrative—or to reflect one’s desire to see. Pigments activated by water settle into the porous skin of the paper; fields of color wash over each other repeatedly; brushstrokes of undefined borders seem to simultaneously form and reconfigure. A tear in the paper could be seen as a disruption to the physical body, or rather a continuation of space and what cannot be contained.  

Gong’s sculptures conjure the magic of an opera after the show in an empty house with the scattered props on a partly broken down stage. In the theater, one story is told and retold through various productions, each an interpretation conveyed by the sets, scores, costumes, and lighting design. Each time the play is performed, the audience’s experience is invoked, shaped, and amplified through these various constructions. Gong’s work examines the symphonic effects produced by set objects and props, which both register and become imprinted with the emotional responses of the audience. Gong extends this study beyond theater and into the real world with sculptures that reference his personal narrative, for example, a billboard from atop of the 1970s train station in his hometown. Using both traditional and new materials made with modern technologies, the idea of one dominant or ruling narrative is subverted.

Together, the works of Gong and Mouton set a stage where sensory experiences and material presences converge; we are inserted into the middle of a story still taking shape. Standing within this precisely designed but still unfolding scene, the works make us more aware of our reactions and attachments to the narratives that surround us, allowing room for new and nuanced developments in the next retelling.