Waters of Pure Reason: Katya Labowe-Stoll, Marley White

When I was five years old, I fell off a boat in my grandmother’s lake because I was holding on to the rail too hard. My older sister says I was underwater for only enough time to just about avoid death by drowning, but I remember sinking down all the way to the bottom. Where I saw creatures I still don’t recognize to this day. Some of them spoke to me. I don’t think I was the same thing I was before by the time they pulled me out. But maybe that's not such a bad thing.

From ”The party that never ends”,  Headache, 2023

Be cleansed by filthy water and be reborn free. Our bodies are formed from dust on the ground and the salt of the sea; without a master or commandments. We are born of the dirt and grime of the earth. There is no need to cleanse any original sin or any thereafter. Surrender your idea of what is sacred and accept an existence unbound by a true north. Cleanse yourself of the fear of carnal desires, wash away your need for divine purity. Accept perfectly imperfect. Let filth be holy.

Make Room is proud to present Waters of Pure Reason, where LA based artists Katya Labowe-Stoll and Marley White explore knowledge without shame. 

Katya Labowe-Stoll paints humanoid forms that merge with the world around them. The bodies bubble like sludge, they drip into the ground and float in the water. They are misshapen and slow, gazing into the distance with a knowing silence. These creatures are like us; forming as they live into a composite of their environment. They do not need nets to catch fish for they have been blessed with hands. They are part of a greater whole, while retaining their own shape, they know, they love, and they eat just as we do. 

Marley White conjoins the earth into our human forms with her reimagination of objects in relation to one’s body as external and internal decor. She employs metal, pearl, and skin to fit our bodies in beautiful and devilish ways. Pieces that engage with the body not as an inorganic invasion but as a readoption of the earth's materials as an aspect of our being. Her use of the pig intestine and goat hooves reveals the materiality of our own bodies. Our skin is a fabric that stretches just as an animal’s would. When our bodies no longer hold our consciousness they become material that is no different from wood, stone or the air around us. 

Our bodies are not our own, they are an aspect of the world. Simply because our rubber souls keep our feet off the ground doesn’t mean every inch of our skin will not return to the earth. Revel in the feeling that you are much greater than just what is encased in your skin. You are free to engage with everything around you, but be kind to it as if it was your own body. Play with the earth as an artist: use your body to paint, to mold clay or to bend metal. Create swelling vibrations with your voice, and pound the earth underfoot as you dance. Drink From the Waters of Pure Reason.