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The core thematics Jennifer Spångerud and Morgan Russell share are grounded in the physical reaction, fascination and desire in things that provoke humans on a basic neurological level. 

 

Spångerud’s practice strongly references themes surrounding sleep and death, architectural grotesques and monstrousities in physical bodies. Raised in a family devoted to the medical sciences, Jennifer Spångerud has matured surrounded by images and studies of anatomy, biomedicine and diseases. This founded her fascination in themes relating to gender/androgynity and our guttural physical reactions and sensations to things considered disgusting or in the realm of the uncanny. The work imbedded in the installation for the degree show, Lying sleeping dead desire, is a body lying on the ground, seemingly dead or asleep, referencing androgyny and the blurred depiction of sleep and death

 

Russell is equally devoted to objects that provoke the most primal reactions. The sculptress is personally driven by the human minds ability to construct the monsterous and her own subjective understanding of all things unfamiliar and horrifically sublime. Russell is attracted to the most hideous organic forms, monstrous sea creatures and that which humans often fear. The relationship humans have with film and other strange unreal fabricated landscapes, is also of great intrigue to the artist and because of this the aesthetics and sculptural manefestations of her work often takes forms similar to filmic special effects, props and costumes. Ambiguity plays an important part in Russell’s work, where a reduction of information and presence of weird physical entitites allows the viewer to claim their own experience from the work whether they be disgusted or seduced.

 

This installation represents a dying stage of the two artists collaborative practice. Broken sculptures and withered artworks from previous exhibitions lie surrounding newer pieces, pointing to a limbo where the merged practice must die or evolve.