My Boyfriend Is A Peacekeeper

Amanda Nedham

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

PUTTY'S CORONATION is pleased to announce the inaugural show My Boyfriend Is A Peacekeeper, a solo exhibition of installation, sculpture, drawing, and photography by Amanda Nedham. The exhibition continues through June 12th .

I saw a wild dog this morning that reminded me of a reoccurring dream I was having between 1974 and 2002 where I was being chased by seventeen hyenas. Or I was running with them. I don't know how I knew how many there were, maybe it was the number of legs racing by me; maybe it was the sound- the awkward yet powerful momentum of those heavy bodies forcibly slamming stunted back limbs into front ones. I can still hear them sometimes when I close my eyes:

thug-sheut, thug-sheut, thug-sheut, thug-sheut, thug-sheut, thug-sheut, thug-sheut, thug-sheut, thug-sheut, thug-sheut, thug-sheut, thug-sheut, thug-sheut, thug-sheut,thug-sheut, thug-sheut, thug-sheut, thug-sheut,

In these moments there is room for nothing else, but right now it is sunny and I think I'll go for a jog. I miss running with you.

They burn everything here- cigarette pack labels have taken on a more global kind of self consciousness, like memento-mori on the scale of not individual but human tragedy. Death seeps through stone cracks and embeds itself in pulp and plastic. Nothing is beyond corruptible. This explains my decision to start smoking, and I think that you should too. I just wanted to give you a heads up.

The other day the group I was with found a dead bear in the street. I googled the descriptive markings and discovered that it was a spectacled bear, or Tremarctos ornatus, the last remaining relative of the short-faced bear- the first North American bear. I find immense comfort in knowing that people, like bears, are at the mercy of their environments, evolutionarily speaking. I kept two teeth, one for me and one for you. I named them Charles Dawson and Piltdown Man after the well-known amateur paleo- anthropologist and the jawbone fragment that he claimed to be from 'the missing link'. It turned out the bone fragments were taken from
1. a medieval human
2. an orangutan
3. a chimpanzee

Pressing them firmly against the upper molars on either side, I tucked the two bear teeth into my own mouth to be physically reminded of humour.

I never found out what she was doing so far from home. -Amanda Nedham  

Amanda Nedham (Canadian, b.1981) lives and works between New York and Abu Dhabi. She received her M.F.A. in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2014. Recent exhibitions include Extract IV, Young Art Prize at the GL STRAND, Copenhagen, Future Talents Archive Project at the Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens, Q: Are you an undertaker? A: No. Q: Are you a service provider? A: Yes at LE Gallery, Toronto. Her work will also be featured at Frida Smoked, Invisible-Exports, New York this May. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.