UH OH!
The signs are everywhere. They have been for a long, long time. Clear to read, message strong: we’ve got a water problem. This beautiful, watery bubble of a planet, our earth, like a space ship, universe-bound seeking what? Water elsewhere? In drops? Not even. In microliters, embedded in rock, in crystals, sub, sub, subzero that we could…record? Capture? Collect and bring back home as we leak our own?
Two bodies of work comprise Jessica Straus’s current exhibition, “Uh Oh!” Utilizing non-potable water signage sliced to near illegibility, Straus has constructed water storage containers that suggest an absurd, last ditch effort to hang onto humanity’s most precious resource. Likewise her constructed blimp-like earths with geographic maps of alarming proportions appear to be setting out on impossible quests.
With characteristic black humor, Straus launches headlong into the apocalyptic world of water scarcity and rising seas. She makes us wonder out loud if we have to arrive at the “End Times” to get ourselves to focus on this most critical of human issues.
