When a societal issue touches an artist it can change his or her art and ultimately touch a viewer beyond words. When Melissa Herrington moved to Los Angles, she was struck by the disappearance of women in her community. In her new exhibition at Gallery DeNovo in Ketchum, Herrington presents "Lighght," which are new paintings and drawings and includes the installation, "The Los Angeles County Project."
"It is a changing perspective," Herrington said. "I am not relying on color. It is a direct referent of photography and a larger project about class and social issues."
The title, "Lighght," is borrowed from a minimalist poem by Aram Saroyan. Saroyan's controversial poem challenged traditional poetry because of its conceptual approach and is more than appropriate for Herrington because it plays upon words and the absence of letters.
Herrington's installation is like a graveyard, and consists of 200 pieces of black paper pinned with map pins on the wall. The charcoal drawings on black paper can be difficult to see, but that is the purpose. The drawings reflect women who used to exist and have now faded from society.
The ghostly images refer to the current list of missing women in Los Angles County, which Herrington has been researching since 2007. She updates her installation quite frequently, and the blank spaces in the installation are random, representing the ongoing issue of missing persons.
Herrington uses a grid formation for the installation, which is called the Herman grid. This type of grid creates the optical illusion of gray squares at the intersections of the black pieces of paper. This is another aspect to the work, which makes the images difficult to see and is the purpose as well as a major detail of the installation.
"People don't talk while viewing the installation," Herrington said. "It's the absence they are experiencing. I would venture to guess that there are more than double the women missing than are reported to the police department."
Herrington also points out that more often than not, the missing persons presented in the news are usually white, young and pretty—"damsels in distress." Her installation represents all women who are missing.
The installation is not for sale, and its purpose is to communicate the issue of missing women. It is an ongoing project, and can have a great deal of influence on finding missing women.
"I got lost in a human archive because there are just so many people who are missing," Herrington said.
"The Los Angeles County Project" an installation by Melissa Herrington. Charcoal and graphite on paper at Gallery DeNovo.
Photo by Robin Reiners
