California State University San Bernardino, California
58' by 33' by 12' High
Pine, Steel, Mortar, and Running Water
Water is the issue in Gurgle, Weep, Flow, which addresses the long pending water crisis in southern California as fact and as metaphor. One of the most striking characteristics of Pat Warner's body of work, and this particular installation, is its lack of reliance on a romanticized view of nature. Warner's dexterous wit succeeds in confusing the distinctions between exterior and interior, real and fantastic, possible and probable.
Warner is not a didactic artist; she does not give us statistics or frighten
viewers with images of catastrophe, but what she does give us is an imaginary
visual narrative which has universal application; it creates a space that stands
in for and symbolizes any number of 'real' spaces and it is derived from a desire
to restore the relationship between the physical ground and the humans who
inhabit it.
