Greenroom

Nov. 20

Millie Chen
Warren Quigley*
May 21 – September 15, 1998

Millie Chen and Warren Quigley, Greenroom, 1998; fiberglass castings of actual furniture, gelcoated in coloured plastic

Artist Statement

In the Greenroom are mediated furnishings, cast from actual furniture and painted in the "Field Guide to Naturalizing Greens" palette. This naturalizing colour system mimics the act of introducing to the current locale a plant, animal or person from another place, thereby causing it to adapt to the local conditions, a foreign environment. 'Naturalizing' also entails making more 'lifelike,' recapturing what is 'natural.' Given that Greenroom is situated in a garden (i.e. a place where natural material is used in an artificial construct) in the centre of an urban environment, multiple meanings come into play.

Green is the dominant colour in nature and as such is considered relaxing and restful to the eye. Its use benefits work, study and recuperation environments such as schools, hospitals, theatre backstage rooms where performers may rest and receive visitors, time-out rooms in corporate offices where executive workers can refuel and re-strategize.

For Greenroom, the specialty line of green "Field Guide to Naturalizing Greens" is expressly designed to imitate the sanctuary quality and good taste of nature. This designer system of greens is applied to a living room suite that is imbedded into the grassy grounds of the Sculpture Garden. The living room, the showcase room in the house, is a simultaneously private and public space used for relaxation and entertainment of guests. The prized furnishings and objects within this room are highly maintained and often covered for protection and preservation. In the context of human created environments, the living room is one of the most common and contrived.

This 'naturalized' living room landscape, with its photosynthetic surfaces, stages an absurd attempt to regain the natural as a feature that is synonymous with the breeding of taste and class. The origins of the green palette may have been inspired by greens found in nature, but in this application natural sources have become an entirely fabricated experience coated with lifestyle aspirations.

The couch is situated so that visitors inclined to sit on it have a panoramic view of the waterfall.