In her first solo show Zoe Sklepa presents a series of sculptural assemblages, which at first glance seem to consist of commonplace ready-made products. With a closer look, however, one realizes that they have been reconstructed in such a way as to form new – indefinable – objects, to which no specific function can be attributed.

Bringing to mind pop art creations, it appears that Sklepa aims to draw our attention to the significance of the ephemeral, consumable products of our daily lives. Yet, being simultaneously aware of their sculptural possibilities and isolating them from their own context by assembling them in new ways, she bestows upon them, through their transformation into art, a new meaning. In her work, the signifier may remain the same as we know it from our collective experience, but the signified is open to her personal – and our personal – interpretation.

This gesture towards each viewer to create their own narrative when encountering her artworks, is one of her primary goals. And this goal is served by every element that constitutes them. By the selection of familiar objects that anyone can recall from their personal experiences, by resorting to a childlike naivety when addressing sensitive or even tantalizing issues, by the humor that usually permeates the titles of her works.

All these memories and stimuli that Sklepa turns into art, she attempts to protect and preserve beyond the moment they actually happened. Hence the title of the exhibition, Season Extension, a term borrowed from agriculture which the artist embraces in order to isolate the feelings she has experienced from the intensity of the moment and to create for them “a discreet shell that deceives time, an extension of life”, as she herself puts it. She invents her own safe space, but without isolating herself; the rendering of her works reveals an openness and the intention to include us all in this new condition.