CLULEY PROJECTS

Cat Rigdon:
Finds from The Pit

October 5 – November 9, 2024

CLULEY PROJECTS is pleased to announce Finds from The Pit an exhibition of new work by Dallas-based artist, Cat Rigdon. The exhibition features paintings, drawings, and ceramics in the style of ancient Cypriot artifacts. Drawing from her childhood experience on the island of Cyprus, Rigdon examines the history of archaeology and exploitation in the region. Finds from The Pit pulls from The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s and British Museum’s collections of Cypriot antiquities, adapting them into two-dimensional paintings and coil-built vases. The artist’s playful reimagining of these artifacts, paired with diaristic text, acts as a form of cultural and personal reclamation.

In the late-19th century, U.S. consul to Cyprus, Luigi Palma di Cesnola excavated over 35,000 antiquities from the island. The collection was then sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, making up what is now known as The Cesnola Collection. The illegality of Cesnola’s excavations has been well documented by scholars with Classicist, Stanley Casson, going so far as to describe the U.S. consul as “the most consistent and thorough looter of antiquities of the later nineteenth century.”1 Calls have been made for the MET to return their looted Cypriot artifacts, but no real action has been made on behalf of the museum. In her work, Rigdon exposes the patriarchal greed belying noble perceptions of Cesnola’s cultural conquest. In defiance, Finds from The Pit transforms these looted antiquities, retaining their indigenous traditions before adding her familial history and creative whimsy Rigdon begins her creative process by consulting visual archives of Cypriot art. Her interest in relics from the Famagusta region of Eastern Cyprus began when Rigdon and her mother learned ceramics from a traditional potting family who had been exiled from the region in 1974. As opposed to wheel throwing, “coiling” is a pottery technique where long, skinny strips of clay are built up individually in circular layers. Works such as, Then Thelo Alabastron showcase the organic, oblong shape created through coiling. Decorated with geometric patterns, an ashen glaze, and confessional text, Then Thelo Alabastron evokes the awe of discovering artifacts, soil still on their surface, that she felt entering dig sites as a child.

The artist’s two-dimensional works, conceptualize the vases’ exteriors as a flat surface for inscription: short journal entries curve around the body of her vessels, mimicking traditional Cypriot geometric motifs. These entries explore topics from romance, paternal conflict, and body perception. Playing with scale, she shows that the future of art in Cyprus has room for creativity and humor. Rigdon’s unconventional placement of her work, either free-floating on the wall or in quasi-dig site arrangements, intentionally contrasts the clean display of museum collections.

Cat Rigdon’s newest work traverses drawing, painting, and ceramics taking inspiration from Cyprus and its artistic traditions. Written text on her work confronts the conflicted history of European looting, collections that maintain these stolen goods, and her personal relationship to exploitation. Finds from The Pit shows Rigdon’s reverence for the island’s artistic traditions. Her chosen artifacts are raised from their looters and antiquity, imagining a collaborative future for Cypriot art.

Cluley Projects
2123 Sylvan Ave
Dallas, TX 75208

469.615.5214

Wednesday – Saturday
12:00 – 5:00 pm
or by appointment

cluleyprojects.com