We Wondered If We Could Reach Its End Artist Talk for Artfields

Hi, my name is Jane Cheek, and I am a Raleigh, North Carolina based installation artist. The piece that I have at Artfields is titled, We Wondered If We Could Reach Its End and it is a large scale, ceiling suspended, kinetic sculpture.

The work was based on my personal experience of coming out as bi and seeing a rainbow that felt like a big, warm, welcoming, hug from the universe. In response to the recent onslaught of anti-queer legislation and sentiment, I wanted to create a message of love and hope for the community and used my coming out experience as the inspiration for the piece. The work is ever changing because of its translucent and kinetic properties, and that feels like a really great metaphor for how our personal histories inform our perceptions of the world.

The installation is composed of over 1500 hand-painted mylar circles, sewn into colorful strands and suspended by thousands of feet of brass chain. I worked on this piece for nearly 6 months and it was truly a labor of love.

As the installation arches through space, it appears to enter through the ceiling and puddles on the floor. The slope of the piece invites you to walk beneath the elevated end of the sculpture and take in the work from all sides. Once inside the arch, you are surrounded by 180 degrees of kinetic, light filled rainbow. As you walk around the work, you displace air, causing the strands to move gently. The moving reflective surface of the colorful strands cause light to dance around the space and cast colorful shadows on walls and floors.

My installation work as a whole, memorializes personal moments and memories in immersive formats. I offer these glimpses into my daily life as a queer Southern woman to help create connections. I use simple geometric forms and familiar imagery to create universally accessible artwork that challenges the perception that our differences have to be larger than life, and I hope to create spaces and conversations that help bridge those differences. If you haven’t seen We Wondered If We Could Reach Its End in person yet, you can view it at Main Street Mercantile and if you run in to me around town after, I would love to have a conversation with you about the work.