Abigail Goldman - Everyday Animals

About

Everyday Animals is an exhibition of new ‘Dieoramas’ by Abigail Goldman . It is part of her ongoing exploration of violence and the undercurrent of rage that seems to be bubbling under the surface of our everyday lives. This exhibition will run from Nov 14th - Dec 6th and will coincide with David Stoupakis' solo show Pendulum and Clare Toms' solo show Parallel . By miniaturising graphic horrors, she hopes to shock the viewer with contrasts: cute and creepy, dark and funny, vile and charming. Hopefully, these juxtapositions both challenge and amuse. Sometimes miniaturising rage through tiny dioramas is a kind of small-scale catharsis. Sometimes it’s a foil for our own dark desires and our private morbid fascinations. The figures in the dioramas are less than an inch tall; many works in the show can fit in the palm of one’s hand. By working with miniatures, Goldman hopes to subvert a traditionally female form of expression. In effect, she’s playing house with cute dolls. It just so happens that those dolls are often slaughtering each other. Goldman works as an investigator for the public defender in a small town in the far north of Washington state. By day, she investigates all types of crimes, from complex murder to simple theft. At night, after her children are tucked into bed, she works on miniature crime scenes of her own making. Prior to working as an investigator, she spent almost a decade as a newspaper reporter in Las Vegas. Goldman’s Dieoramas have been featured on Juxtapoz, Atlas Obscura, NPR, the Huffington Post, and the L.A. Times.