The Molting — SHANE DARWENT

SPENCER BROWNSTONE � SHANE DARWENT_14.jpg

SPENCER BROWNSTONE � SHANE DARWENT_05.jpg

SPENCER BROWNSTONE � SHANE DARWENT_18.jpg

SPENCER BROWNSTONE � SHANE DARWENT_13.jpg

SPENCER BROWNSTONE � SHANE DARWENT_03.jpg

SPENCER BROWNSTONE � SHANE DARWENT_09.jpg

SPENCER BROWNSTONE � SHANE DARWENT_11.jpg

SPENCER BROWNSTONE � SHANE DARWENT_04.jpg

SPENCER BROWNSTONE � SHANE DARWENT_17.jpg

SPENCER BROWNSTONE � SHANE DARWENT_15.jpg

SPENCER BROWNSTONE � SHANE DARWENT_10.jpg

SPENCER BROWNSTONE � SHANE DARWENT_12.jpg

prev / next

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·

Spencer Brownstone Gallery is pleased to present The Molting, Shane Darwent’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. This new body of work continues Darwent’s exploration of storefront awnings as specific forms and as symbols of the evolving American urban landscape. A layer of sound, in collaboration with sound artist Robbie Wing, creates an auditory counterpart to the visual dialogue—an evolving soundscape that further immerses viewers in the theme of urban transformation.

We look for signs along the road, not road signs, or signs from God but signs of the micro economies we are slicing through. In a single sweeping view we are confronted with the new business coming soon, the old one that once was, the one that continues to cling on, the one that has taken over the old and made it new again. Collecting on the sides the things washed up, from the ever churning combinations of humanity.

The exhibition starts closed. A large mounted photograph blocks the line of sight into the gallery, standing a few feet from its narrow entrance. A bollard stands in front of a red wall and a window covered with butcher paper. Past the visual obstruction, the space opens up to a number of surfaces stretched onto shiny frames.

For the Molting, Darwent returns to discarded awning vinyl from familiar storefronts such as auto body shops, nail salons, and the Family Dollar store, reassembling them over newly fabricated aluminum armatures. Cropped, illegible store logos—once in signage—become graphic fields, language reduced to shape and color. Some awnings feature fresh vinyl in combination with the used and sunfaded, resulting in a visual oscillation between real and pictorial space. The surface is the thing, and vice versa. The collection of works are remnants, multifaceted, brilliant, and brittle—left behind the moment of metamorphosis.

Darwent’s structures, some front and back, some inside and outside—echo the transient nature of the spaces they reference. They operate as chrysali, signaling the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. As sign-making signals its own transformation, the works invite reflection on how physical and economic landscapes continually shift, leaving behind traces—visual, material, and emotional—that speak to resilience, obsolescence, and renewal.