Guy Michael Davis and Katie Parker are the collaborative team known as Future Retrieval. Their exhibition, Crystal-Walled Seas, at Denny Dimin Gallery in Tribeca, was a total thrill for me to stumble upon. I adored the exhibition.

“Since 2008, Guy Michael Davis and Katie Parker have been collaborating together under the name Future Retrieval, mining archives and museums to digitally collect and make objects that re-examine the history of decorative arts. They work fluently across media in ceramics, weaving, cut paper, and installation, challenging these traditional media to behave differently for our time. Much of the work in Crystal-Walled Seas is based on research they did during their 2019 residency at the Lloyd Library and Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio where they came across seminal texts that trace the history of pattern, decoration and botanical forms across the globe. Their current direction is based on early illustrated instructionals on sustaining aquatic life in a domestic setting. H. Noel Humphries’ 1857 book, Ocean Gardens is a launching point for this body of work with the exhibition title, Crystal Walled Seas, having been taken directly from the text. Through this they have examined not only how to build and populate a successful underwater environment, but how doing so can influence one’s character and feelings towards nature. Aquaria and aquascape have become a metaphor for their new home habitat and studio which is now a closed system or microcosm of individual design.” (Denny Dimin Gallery)

I liked everything about this show, and I’d hang the piece Fungiculture in my home in a heartbeat.

I was pleased to come home with a lovely booklet about the work written by the incomparable Garth Johnson (Curator of Ceramics at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York). You can flip through it here.

The exhibition is open through June 4, 2022.