mirror milk | Timothy Veske-McMahon
mirror milk is an exhibition of new works by artist and contemporary jeweler Timothy Veske-McMahon. These wearable works are drawn from fundamental needs—of communication, of relationships, of the home—to create basic elements of a visual lexicon representing the delicate balance of adult life. The resultant logograms combine and bloat into objecthood.
The artist’s studio practice is divergent with repurposed materials minted through repetitious hours at the workbench as well as virtual objects that blink into existence. Dimensional forms are wrapped and layered with imagery through the culturally competing techniques of marbling and hydrographic printing. These pieces investigate shifts from graphic two-dimensional signifiers to patterned sculptural forms, drawing inspiration from specific geographies and personal spaces.
“We seek out and delve into mirrors for clarifying affirmation but, in truth, are met with a foreign body. This inversion captures and takes hold of our sense of familiarity, slyly perpetuating an alienating sense of self. The operative mechanism remains true beyond the literal geometry of optics. We likewise define ourselves through (co)observational analogs, assuming a universal perception that naïvely forgoes the parallax between viewing the same object from different positions. We assume: a boy is like a boy, a marriage is like a marriage, and hunger is like hunger.
This perceived closeness of similarity and familiarity is a deception. A fictitious shorthand we use in identifying ourselves within society and relationships. If definition is a loss of information, is it possible create a loss-less object?”
