Object and Meaning:
     An Exploration of Brokenness and Repair
Shelley Chamberlin

Statement
In this exhibition, you are invited to break things, things that are merely objects, or things that are personal and meaningful to you. You are also invited to bring things to be mended.

how long will you have to make clay pitchers
that have to be broken to enter you?
--Rumi

It's easy to categorize things in our lives or in the world as either falling apart or coming together, but these things are always happening in tandem. By paring them down to simplest form and bringing them into the same room, the juxtaposition illuminates their relation to one another, how they are two sides of the same coin. Construction and destruction are both part of the same unfolding story. 
In destroying and mending objects there is an opportunity for reflection about the meanings and stories we attach to these objects. By transmuting the objects, there's the possibility of transmuting their stories as well.
It is an opportunity to glimpse into the possibility of a new organization of meaning. It is the way things are always breaking down and building up at the same time. It is the making and remaking of meaning. It is systems and stories that no longer work in their wholeness, things that have to be pieced together from what remains, from what has been worn and torn and shattered, loved into loose strands. 

Bio
Shelley Chamberlin is a Portland interdisciplinary artist who works in a variety of media from printmaking to film to performative installation. She is interested in exploring relationality and the ways in which we build and contextualize meaning. After earning her Bachelors of Fine Arts from Marylhurst University, she ran the studio art program at Portland Art Museum. She received her Masters of Fine Arts from Goddard College. Her work has been included in a variety of film and print media, including NBC’s Grimm, The Grove Review, and Album Covers for The Speechwriters and Velvet Mishka. She teaches at Portland Community College and Multnomah Art Center. Her work can be found at Portland Art Museum’s Rental Sales Gallery, and is included in Regional Arts and Culture Council's Visual Chronicle of Portland Collection. shelleychamberlin.blogspot.com