1275 Minnesota St /
Municipal Bonds
Yvonne Mouser: The Shape of Time
Artist Reception: Saturday, October 2, 2021 | 4-7 pm PST
“I've always been mesmerized by the reality that everything is at some rate changing, even that which seems fixed. And that a single experience can, at times, contrast itself, feeling both tragic and beautiful at the same time. In a way, my work is about my expanding awareness of and acceptance from within these fundamental dynamics.” — Yvonne Mouser
Municipal Bonds is pleased to present a solo exhibition of sculptural works by Yvonne Mouser, titled The Shape of Time. Oakland-based Mouser investigates her fascination with perceptions of time and natural phenomena, through works suggesting growth, decay, or a sequence of temporal states. In altering mundane objects, she creates portraits of moments teasing apart strands of time and causality. Finding flux visible at the intersections of order and chaos, of reality and memory, she experiments with concepts, materials, and evolving processes that draw attention to moments of transformation.
Mouser explores ideas through the making of objects, experimenting with concepts, materials, and methods with a foundation in the traditions of a woodworking studio. She utilizes craft techniques for joining, shaping, and manipulating material to create furniture, everyday objects, and sculptures. Her work plays with technical processes like coopering, steam bending, laminating, and casting. At times, actions such as grinding and burning, and accumulative assemblies allow for an intuitive approach.
Driven by tactility, Mouser incorporates a range of materials in her work—from metal, glass, sand, and paper, to natural fibers and composites. In her practice, craft thinking evolves through hands-on experimentation, where processes often lead to new forms and materials motivate methods. She approaches each new objectmaking effort as an exercise in restraint, focusing on the purity of an idea and the most direct construction methods in an attempt to achieve simplicity in the final outcome. She is interested in the layering of functionality or structure for transforming familiar objects, yielding adaptations of vernacular forms.