Patrick Carlin Mohundro
to light a candle is to cast a shadow…

September 8 to October 8, 2023
Opening reception Sept 8, 6-8 pm

There will be no one who will laugh at me as I have laughed at myself.¹

Home Gallery is pleased to present “to light a candle is to cast a shadow… ,” an exhibition featuring a single sculpture by Patrick Carlin Mohundro—a solitary sculpted candle, tied in a knot and suspended behind the gallery’s street-facing window. Mohundro casts his candle from a combination of Speed Stick® deodorant, gelatin and glycerin. The candle has a comically long wick, which extends from the floor to the ceiling in a playful homage to the minimalist and conceptual sculptor, Fred Sandback. Mohundro uses Speed Stick® both for its artificial green color and as an emblem of men’s deodorant, advertised to smell “clean, confident and masculine.”² The deodorant also destabilizes the common mold-making rubber made from gelatin³, making the medium sticky. The variation on the candle makes the ‘wax light' flexible yet unable to perform its true purpose—to be burned so that it might provide illumination.

The exhibition title is taken from the first novel in Ursula K. Leguin’s Earthsea series, “A Wizard of Earthsea.” Early in the book, a young apprentice is advised by his mentor that the “...power of changing and of summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow..." The power of change and the symbolic shorthand of change, delta (∆), are motifs frequently used by Mohundro to describe the potential (or lack thereof) of a work of art to affect perspective, power and the material world.

In his work, Mohundro searches for the fulcrum between humor and gravity, play and display. For the opening and select gallery hours, the artist sets out a carefully soldered stained glass box containing takeaway gifts—votive candles cast from the same mixture of Speed Stick® deodorant, gelatin and glycerin. Viewers are invited to open the box and leave with a candle. The candles appear to be traditional and rigid but, when handled, are floppy, smelly, and sticky. To take one away you must peel it from the group, eliciting the sensation of skin sticking together in the humidity of a New York summer. In a non-art context, these votive candles might function as gag gifts, like vending-machine ‘sticky hands.’ Within an art-world context, however, the viewer is made participant when presented with the choice to take an offering. Though the candle can no longer cast light, the changed object illuminates new possibilities as a transformed, supple work of art.

¹ Jung, C. G., & Shamdasani, S., The Red Book: Liber Novus, trans. by M. Kyburz & J. Peck, Trans.) (W.W. Norton & Co. New York • London, 2009), p.136.
² https://www.speedstick.com/en-us
³ Typically, a ratio of 2:2:1 parts glycerin, gelatin, and distilled water.

Patrick Carlin Mohundro lives and works in New York. He is from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and holds an MFA from Hunter College (2019). Patrick is the recipient of NYFA and Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency grants and has received awards from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (NY, 2011), Salem Art Works (NY, 2012), St. Nicks Alliance’s Arts@Renaissance (NY, 2013), Incheon Art Platform (Seoul, 2014), the Founding Fellowship at Offshore Residency (ME, 2016), famous chimps’ artist-in-residence program (Ridgewood, 2019), Carrizozo Arts (NM, 2021), and A-Z West Artist (CA, 2021). He has had solo exhibitions with Lonesome Dove (NY, 2023) and Collar Works (NY, 2013) and recently exhibited at the Finnish Cultural Institute (NY, 2023), International Objects (NY, 2023), Parent Company (NY, 2023), Walter’s (NY, 2023) and O’Flaherty’s (NY, 2022).

Media Contact
william@homehomehomehome.com

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