Neesh Ransome

November 15 – 19, 2021

Kresge Art Center, Gallery 101

The Department of Art, Art History, and Design at Michigan State University is pleased to announce A Break in Reality, a solo exhibition by Bachelor of Fine Arts degree candidate Neesh Ransome.

This is a story about breaks in reality. The story of the spontaneous alterations in my DNA paired with the histories of my ancestors. In the works, I process my experience with mental illness and physical pain, using materials and deconstruction as a way to delve into the feelings of living in multiple realities that are layered with hallucinations and sleep paralysis. Moments where my mind falls into the dark while the immune disorder tears my body apart. In this fracturing, I consider the stories of my ancestors: the lives they lived, the stress, their deaths, the lynching’s, their suffering. But also of their power, strength, hearts, and greatness.

I use canvas, wood, or cardboard as a metaphor for reality and then break the surface to create something strange, something not right. A rip, tear, or cut suggests the stress within the process and the meaning. The barbed wire tears through the surface, the paper hangs and falls perfectly, the tires worn down and old. Symbols like letters cover the substrate, reminiscent of a language that looks familiar, but that one cannot read. Where words fail to express these multiple realities, I live in, the combination of materials and expressive marks sing of sorrow and strength. The story that I am trying to show you is the surface and depth of my pain. The some-things that are not quite right.