12. 26

Ben Borden and Zoe Koke:
Palingenesis

02.15.25 – 03.22.25

Our landscape is in flux. In the work of Zoe Koke and Ben Borden, greens and blues ooze into one another fighting for dominance. The atmosphere is a playground, churning the raw material of the primordial soup we inhabit. Rock and air and fire, the elements scramble in the chaotic process of formation, fragmentation, and regeneration. Nothing is lost, the whispers of something ancient are merely buried beneath geological layers. Koke’s canvas and Borden’s algae polymer stained glass are windows into the world’s process, portals that blur the line between origin and horizon. In Borden’s work, 3D modeling software spits out machined biomorphic forms framing chemical reactions adhered to glass. Light pours through as if streaking the surface of an algae-covered pond.

Borden grew up in Texas, Koke in Canada. Their first show together took place in 2018, another gallery space filled with apocalyptic abstractions. Both artists produce highly sculptural work—springing forth from their mounted position even when hung on a wall. Paint accumulates like layers of sediment, chalky and worked over, pulled into something new. There’s an opacity to their work, kinetic and bright even as they archive a series of elemental reactions. Without a gallery guide it would be easy to mistake these materials as entirely organic. Koke’s paintings flirt with crimson lava, minerally forest, emerald mountain, and violet air. There’s a violence to her brushstrokes, a furious sky erupting into swirling browns and tenuous puffs of white. Sometimes minimalism can reflect the post-industrial cityscape through bras moments of dappled color, shimmering with angelic highlights amidst stormy skyscapes.

In the wake of such scale, it can be difficult to have faith in the passage of time. Eruptions give way to vitally enriched soil. Borden’s work confronts the tedium of patience head on, his works will continually evolve and change even after they’re hung on a wall. The careful work of an alchemist, potassium ferrocyanide, algae and glycerin will continue to shift as time ticks on. Light, too, will be a chemical agent as Borden’s pieces continue to bubble and react.

“I collect ephemera,” Koke says of her own work. Like her parents, she studies geology… metamorphosis, and survival. Whether obliquely referencing agates or the womb of a volcano, Koke’s paintings are like shields in the middle of detonations. Rocks can provide shelter during the tumult of the battlefield. There’s something dreamy, visceral, and mythological about her work. The show’s title, Palingenesis, refers to rebirth, or recreation. Sometimes the word is used to denote an exact replication of a previous generation. There’s stability even in geological chaos. No two eruptions will be the same, but we can always count on another. This is a palliative way to view time, not just as cyclical (kyklos), but as kairos, a powerful intervention that occurs at just the right moment. There may never be another event like this. Pay attention.

Written By Grace Byron

12.26

150 Manufacturing Street, #205
Dallas, Texas 75207

214-533-8263

Hours:
Tuesday – Friday: by appointment only.
Saturday: 1pm – 5pm

www.gallery1226.com