All Things Being What They Aren’t
Alexandra Ross
May 1-27, 02026
Opening May 1st, 5pm-9pm
All Things Being What They Aren’t is an exhibit of four assemblage works from the artist’s recent stay in The Bahamas. Exhibit opening includes a collaborative assemblage event throughout the evening. Details below.
Exhibit Statement
In this exhibit the artist explores singularity in plurality with four found object assemblage wall sculptures. Each work is titled after the number of “objects” assembled on the surface, shifting the focus to nothing more than an obvious visual observation. The artist uses this practice to solicit a “yes, and” response from the viewer while gently questioning the limits of title as viewing container. With this simple gesture, moving past number-as-category has the capacity to cross the threshold from a world of objects into a cosmos of subjects.
If “all things being what they are” helps an English speaker to contain the world of variables for a moment and draw a conclusion about it, then “all things being what they aren’t” is the linguistic equivalent of busting up a neatly ordered table of material. While English grammar frames the world within categories “singular” or “plural,” examples of singularity in multiplicity are everywhere—whether it is a group of islands called “The Bahamas” or the composite of cells and proteins we label a species, or the assembly of works within a frame, on a wall, in a gallery, on a street, in the world in the universe.
The made up idiom for the exhibit title flips a core enlightenment assumption upside down and posits that all material beings are animate, and resist permanent containment. In this way anything that might be said or known about any other thing, and every interaction with material, is an open invitation into mutable relationships. In this world, where both singularity and multiplicity are met together, not only are new forms as infinite as each interaction emerges, but reciprocity can only be born between the human and other than human worlds in a cosmos of subjects.
Singularity—A Collaborative Assemblage Event
Join the artist in creating a collaborative assemblage sculpture using the artist’s collection of shells and coral gathered from The Bahamas together with negative space, light, and shadows on a Manitoba tree root. Experiment and play with each material. Explore how objects interact with each element to produce an ever emerging sculptural dialogue that is both singular and multiple. The final work is event specific and ephemeral, so be sure to document your contribution! If posting to Instagram, post and tag @thenationallamp