Upon entering the gallery\u2019s bright, first-floor space, I was drawn to the centre by stoneware sculpted tires. Stacked, deflated, and leaning against each other or hung on the gallery walls, their volume was staggering. As is characteristic in Hier\u2019s work, many of these repeating sculptural elements framed oil paintings, acting as portals into her playful world of association games. In Overrated pleasures and underrated treasures (tire pile II)<\/em> (2023) for example, a tire houses a painting divided into two scenes. One side depicts a swimmer dangling over calm water, the other a seahorse hovering over the ocean bed, grasping a Q-tip with its tail. On the gallery floor, among the pile of tires, stood the familiar figure of a 1990s troll doll, coated in a glossy turquoise, as if covered in algae. Each element is glazed in gem-toned purples, blues and greens, evoking the sense of having been immersed in strange waters for an extended period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These weathered qualities nod to Hier\u2019s inspiration for Roadside Picnic<\/em>: trash collected in her Brooklyn neighbourhood and nearby Dead Horse Bay, a beach that has been a dumping ground for industrial waste over centuries. Roadside Picnic<\/em> seems to be born out of what has been cast away. Garbage and cultural clippings are carefully rendered by Hier into something delicious and uncanny, such as She\u2019s good in a crisis <\/em>(2023), a sculpted, flaming toaster that frames an oil painting of a sumptuous cold-cut sandwich and a motorist wearing a gas mask. At times, I also read Hier\u2019s combinations of elements as satirical portraits of these waste-scapes. Works such as Relief is just a swallow away<\/em> (2023) and Hot freaks! <\/em>(2023) are poignant in this way, featuring a seagull stuck in plastic and a vulture alongside its foraged scraps, including a crumpled sock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Roadside Picnic<\/em> borrows its name from a 1971 sci-fi novella by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, set in landscapes of inexplicable bits left on Earth by extraterrestrial beings. In the story, these seemingly haphazard, uncanny assemblages are likened to the aftermath of a roadside picnic. Here, it is humans, rather than plants and animals, who must navigate the threat and mystery of waste left behind. In this body of work, Hier toys with this analogy, perhaps most directly with a wall-piece picnic blanket that frames a tiny oil painting of a person in the folds of a sandwich, arms raised enthusiastically. Lines of gigantic ants crawl among plates of chicken bones, dentures, and playing cards featuring nudes. Both ticklish and contemplative, these tensions between fun and foreboding build the closer you look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A visual artist and emerging curator of Slovenian and German descent, Olivia Vidmar lives as a settler in Tiohti\u00e1:ke\/Mooniyang\/Montr\u00e9al. She holds a BFA from Concordia University and is currently pursuing her MA in art history at the same university. Her research focuses on public art in post-industrial places and community-authored![\"Stephanie-Temma-Hier_RoadsidePicnic\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/111_CR_Vidmar_Stephanie-Temma-Hier_Shesgoodinacrisis_2023Shark-Senesac_1.jpg\")
She\u2019s good in a crisis<\/em>, installation view, 2023.
Photo: Shark Senesac, courtesy of the artist & Bradley Ertaskiran, Montr\u00e9al<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Stephanie-Temma-Hier_2023_Overrated-pleasures-and-underrated-treasures-tire-pile-II_Bradley-Ertaskiran_Shark-Senesac_detail-1.jpg\")
Overrated pleasures and underrated treasures (tire pile II)<\/em><\/em>, installation view, 2023.
Photo: Shark Senesac, courtesy of the artist & Bradley Ertaskiran, Montr\u00e9al<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
urban histories.<\/p>\n