The Frank-Ratchye Project Space is excited to present Out of the Woods, a new exhibition by studio artist Salome El (they/them).

Three years in the making, Out of The Woods, is part immersion, part exploration into new forms of creation with The Summoning and Canopy being the artist’s first venture into sculptural pieces and installation.

The Summoning started as a tree rubbing back in 2020 back in 2020 and grew into part artwork, part narrative dealing with cultural displacement and adoption of western folklore in its wake. While making this piece a short story was formed that explores the erasure of enslaved folks’ culture while at the same time being forced to adapt to a new world that othered them. To borrow from Celtics, a changeling exists out of a tree in order to meet the original person with promises of a better life away from pain but are compounded with a fate worse than could’ve ever imagined. 

Canopy has a double meaning, a play on the structure and what the imagery tries to convey: a tree canopy its shadows hitting the ground. To be enveloped by the tree with its warm embrace and ambient sounds in the background is what my character in the short story thought would happen so these two [The Summoning/Canopy] are interacting with each other in that regard with Fragmented being the actual fate of the character.