You know what they are as soon as you walk into the gallery: windowed security envelope, “sign here” tab, file folder, manila envelope. Except, not quite. The two foot by three foot manila envelope is writ large, its perfect recreated folds, the metal hasp, the circular window -- they simultaneously are and are not quite familiar. What is going on here?
Elliot Norquist’s perennial sense of play is on full display in the work of "Mail Room," on view Jan 10 - Feb 8, 2020. Without giving up his respect for the formal geometries at work here, Norquist has created a twist, an alteration in context that is projected into the mind of the viewer. The effect is a sense of strangeness, of dislocation, that shifts the viewer’s senses, their thinking, and their seeing.
