Organized by the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Come on Down, by New York sculptor Lisa Hoke, will feature a site-specific contemporary mural installation in the Museum’s third floor galleries and be on display December 13, 2013–April 13, 2014. The monumental wall frieze, measuring fifteen feet high and spanning more than 150 feet, incorporates an assortment of every day materials—from recycled paper and product packaging to plastic cups—which serves as a vehicle of color to attract the eye and challenges the irony of mass production in America.
“The visual beauty and title of this exhibition presents multiple meanings. Every one of these packages involve people sitting down and discussing, ‘what’s going to make somebody come on down and buy this?’” explained Hoke. “Color is the thing that makes my heart pound. It’s not the logo; it’s not the printing; it’s the thrill of the color. And I can’t really explain that. It just—it’s a love mixed with over stimulation.”
Hoke begins the creative process in her studio by making 3 x 3 foot assemblages which are then connected into voluminous color patterns; though she creates these small sections in advance, they are placed spontaneously during installation. The visitor experiences complete immersion into a vast color field…the closer the inspection, the more that recognizable elements begin to emerge.
Her career began by working with materials such as cast iron, wire, and automobile parts, and she has now turned to the mass-produced cardboard found in consumer culture. She collects items from eBay, discarded materials from local stores, such as Economy Candy who saves packaging for Lisa every week, and the basement of her apartment building. She sorts her items by color—after each item has been carefully scrutinized—before cutting them up and reassembling.
Hoke’s work has been featured in more than twenty solo exhibitions and numerous group shows. She is the recipient of the prestigious Edwin Austin Abbey Fellowship and The Joan Mitchell Foundation grant, and her work has been reviewed in international newspapers and art magazines. You can find other pieces by Hoke in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, the New York Public Library, the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, D’Amour Museum, Springfield, Massachusetts, and the New Orleans Museum of Art.
