LESLIE KERBY

Leslie Kerby is an artist and curator based in New York City. She works primarily in drawing, painting, printmaking and collage to create thematically interlinked bodies of work focusing on issues related to how we lead our lives personally, as individuals, and to how our personal lives are variably connected to, and changed by, the broader networks and communities within which we live and interact.

Leslie Kerby is an artist and curator based in New York City. She works primarily in drawing, painting, printmaking and collage to create thematically interlinked bodies of work focusing on issues related to how we lead our lives personally, as individuals, and to how our personal lives are variably connected to, and changed by, the broader networks and communities within which we live and interact.

The “container series” is a body of work that I have been creating since 2014. It now includes 2 works on paper series ( unique, collaged monoprints and unique, monotypes created on press), a 3-dimensional cardboard sculpture, a collaborative video animation, a choreographed dance performance and an interview with an independent journalist who has focused on the history of shipping containers and the people “who move stuff” in various ports. Initially, I became interested in some of the re-uses for containers in developing new communities whether they were being used to house refugees in tent cities or for more sophisticated dwellings in cities and for social gathering places around markets. The works on paper and sculpture reference this stacking and building activity and the video explores this activity in the container yards, as they are loaded onto ships, as they move across the water and finally as they are used to build communities and supply food and water—in some cases to remote and isolated locations.

In researching containers, I learned that an international shipping code that identifies the country of origin, type of container and contents is used world-wide. Thus, I created a coding system that became the basis of the titles for the works on paper. The cardboard sculpture is a site-specific piece that will be rebuilt as it moves location referencing the activity of shipping and containing. The sculpture is set to be re-sited in a different configuration at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey for June 1-September 9, 2018 in a group exhibition titled Containment that features some of the works on paper, cardboard sculpture and video. In developing the video animation I worked with two collaborators—Lianne Arnold and Elisheba Ittoop. Lianne who works primarily for the theater was instrumental in bringing my concepts and narrative for the piece to life. Elisheba and I worked on building and creating unique sounds for the piece that echoed the sounds of the shipyards.