Taking a walk behind the Seward Johnson Center for the Arts, one is bound to come across Linda Fleming’s Ex-halations. While the visitor may instantly recognize one of the sculptural steel elements of Ex-halation as a bed, the larger adjacent structure, resembling an intricate scissor-cut design, generates many imaginative interpretations. Read as a whole, the work invites one to weave a personal tale – a story that perhaps speculates at the relationship between the two physically seperate structures comprising Ex-halations. As one continues to explore Fleming’s work of art, the visitor is not only asked to contemplate its meaning, but is urged to appreciate the rich and beautiful patina resulting from the natural oxidation of untreated steel. In the excerpts below, Fleming speaks about her body of work and further remarks about Ex-halations.
My works hint at the co-existence of the mundane and the cosmological to create a place where two realities simultaneously exist including the possibility that the past is also present. The structures are diagrams of thought that provide a glimpse of the strangeness beyond the world to which we cling; opening a place where thought becomes tangible, history leaves a trace and information exhales form. Ex-halations is part of a series of works that give form to the intangible. The structure mimics the motion of air and evokes the cosmologic scale of an exploding binary star or the sharing of cosmic particles we experience through breathing. The bed brings an object of everyday life into juxtaposition with abstract human thought, suggesting the coexistence of multiple realities. It is also the vehicle we use to enter the subconscious. Born in 1945 in Pittsburgh, PA, Fleming displayed an aptitude for art at a very early age, and her talents earned Fleming a full scholarship to Carnegie Mellon University in 1963. For Fleming, location is vital to her in creating artwork, and as a result, the artist divides her time between three studios. Her first studio a 40-foot geodesic dome is located in Colorado at Libre- an artist’s community that was founded in 1968. Fleming’s second studio is at Wall Spring in the Smoke Creek Desert in northwestern Nevada, and the third, The Brewery is in Benicia, CA where Fleming assembles most of her large-scale works. Fleming’s works are featured in public and corporate collections and her most recent shows include nebula/Ether/Wisp: Sculpture and Drawings at Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco, CA and Remnants at Lemmons Contemporary in New York City. In 2006, Fleming installed Dona Benicia’s Mantilla (Envelops the General’s Chair) at Harbor Walk in Benicia, CA. Since 1986, Fleming has been teaching at the California College of Arts, Oakland, CA. More information on this artist can be found at http://lindaflemingsculpture.com/. | | 
Ex-haltations, 2003
steel, aluminum
120" x 120" x 192"; 36" x 60" x 40"
Courtesy of the Artist
Photo: Ricardo Barros.com |
