The Party's Over
2014
This installation, executed at FrontierSpace as a part of my MFA Thesis, examined the Bakken oil boom in North Dakota. It could be seen as a prequel to my MFA Thesis Exhibition at the Gallery of Visual Arts at the University of Montana. While the exhibition at the university was a visual manifestation of the "bust," The Party's Over represented a visual manifestation of the "boom."
Both exhibitions explored the 21st century incarnation of Manifest Destiny, specifically the natural gas boom in North Dakota. And when thinking of the cycle of boom and bust culture, a cycle that has been a constant presence in the American West for the past two centuries, it called to mind two very different extremes. There is the initial grandeur and providential opulence of the boom followed cruelly by the abject desolation of the bust. In this installation, I felt it necessary to change my artistic approach from reductive to additive in order to engage directly and aggressively with the viewer.
The goal of this being to draw visual parallels between the excesses and deterioration of the boom and bust cycle and the corresponding excesses and deteriorations of a house party. The boom bringing the promise of some great experience (the party) and the bust leaving the inevitable mess to clean up (the morning after). Stereotypical party supplies such as streamers, balloons, confetti and pennants were mixed in with empty bottles, cans, cigarette butts and boxes worked as metaphors to visually articulate the overindulgence, waste and ruin that a boom brings to a community. A television played a looping video of cars traveling along U.S. Highway 2 and Richard Hell and the Voidoids' cover of the song "All the Way" played on repeat.
