Jordan Layton, “Imposition,” at Finch Lane Gallery

In Master Classes, we were taught never to start an essay with a dictionary definition and to avoid the thesaurus at all costs. So I’m going to break two expensive rules by quoting the thesaurus here, concerning the title of one of artist Jordan Layton’s pieces, currently on view at Finch Lane. “Imposition,” it seems, can mean “the imposition of an alien culture on the indigenous inhabitants.” Contemplating the notification, posted near the entrance to the gallery, that the land on which Finch Lane stands was, not to put too fine a point on it, stolen from the Indigenous Peoples who dwelt here before the coming of the Europeans, it seems this may be the first work of art in this space to observe the defining principle that an installation should refer to its specific location.

Another nearby piece may support this reading, which is neither specified nor precluded by the artist. A photograph titled “Marked and Measured” features a classic desert scene, with round, brown mountains lying low in the distance and a flat, scrub-covered plain in the foreground. As it typically does, the plant life appears in clumps, with nearly empty space in between, those places resembling the pools of water in swampy areas. Yet it’s on that ground, where one might prefer to walk, that several hundred low-hanging white flags have been planted, effectively blocking passage and preventing any free use of the space. Whatever has been “marked and measured” here has been effectively placed off-limits by so doing.

Joran Layton, “Marked and Measured”

The compelling thing about these two works is that the same white flags on wire stems, which might be used by surveyors to mark the land, appear in both. And further, with the exception of their environmental elements—the fireplace they spill out of in one, the land they take possession of in the other—the flags actually constitute the two pieces in their entirety. These same banners appear in another work, “Two Windows,” a pair of eight-light sashes mounted on the wall like a diptych. Here they block out seven of the sixteen lights, or almost half of the views. The other nine contain fragments of snapshots that point, like the disembodied hand in one of them, towards images of a family, a home and some signs of comparative wilderness.

A nearby bible door, so called because the paneling above the knob presents a Latin cross while that below suggests the open pages of a book, adds to Layton’s use of household artifacts in this dissection of space. The knowledge that there exist both outside and inside may seem trivial, but Layton seems more interested in how they interpenetrate, both effecting and affecting each other. An example of the former is “Intersection,” a seemingly found object that resists an easy explanation. It’s not uncommon for a tree to grow into or around a manmade object, as has happened with this tree branch and section of fence. Yet the fence doesn’t look at all like it’s been outdoors long enough for such a hefty branch to have penetrated and begun to swallow it. Could the tree have grown indoors through a window? In an age when sources exist that insist on being able to explain anything and everything, it’s gratifying when someone can introduce a little elegant mystery into the mix.

Jordan Layton, “Two Windows”

The other example is the portable TV sitting on a chest of drawers in “Within/Without.” One can imagine a room’s occupants, invoked by the images that line the drawers in place of their possessions, engaged in the fundamentally interior labor of stowing and exhuming pieces of their lives, all the while hearing voices and witnessing events from the other side of the planet, or even outer space. We’re all exposed to sufficient information every day to drive us mad, and like so many invisible trees or plants, electromagnetic waves pass through the barriers and boundaries that surround us. We build obstacles to protect us that we then defeat through our own efforts.

Jordan Layton invites us to think about how outside events and experiences influence us, even inside our homes and the castles of our private thoughts. One of his most subtle expressions of that thought is titled “Seam,” a contronym that can mean either to separate or to join together. In a walk of life that sometimes boasts itself a shrine to “seamlessness,” it’s good to be reminded that art is also a contronym, bringing all things into our presence and, at the same time, setting them apart.

Jordan Layton, “Seam” at Finch Lane Gallery

Jodan Layton: Held in Place, Finch Lane Gallery, Salt Lake City, through September 12.

All images courtesy of the author.

Geoff Wichert

Geoff Wichert objects to the term critic. He would rather be thought of as a advocate on behalf of those he writes about.