“Jolly Rancher”
Von Coffin

Opening First Thursday April 4, 2024, 5-9 pm, with artist in attendance
Show runs April 4 - April 26, 2024
Thursday - Saturday, 11am - 4pm
114 Third Ave. S., Seattle WA 98104

Featured Image: worm forms in process, courtesy of the artist, 2024

Von Coffin

“Jolly Rancher”
An installation of sculpture and food that explores how art can be interpreted by multiple senses, Jolly Rancher presents recent work by artist Von Coffin. The title plays on the famous candy that originated in Colorado to conjure the image of happy western farmers, as well as the more sinister skull and crossbones of the pirate flag (the Jolly Roger). The exhibition will also include the remains of a giant Easter Peep bird as well as wall-mounted, architecturally inspired sculptures each paired with a Jelly Belly jelly bean variety to enable visitors the opportunity to smell and taste in addition to viewing the artwork. Jolly Rancher will be accompanied by a monograph featuring texts by Aurora San Miguel, Joseph Buckley, and Marisa Sae Nakasone.

Edible sculptures will be present at the opening, with flavor-enhanced viewing experience during regular exhibition hours.

Von Coffin
Giant “Peep” carcass

Von Coffin’s work is presented in cooperation with Foster/White Gallery

Von Coffin holds an MFA from Yale University and BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. They work in sculpture, painting, and food service, examining color and figure in new forms, both abstract and explicit. They think of it as “Neuroformalism” or “Caloric Abstraction”- something that equates the inner and invisible with canon. Small painted blocks are bits of information within sculptures, their colors carefully translated from common candies. A cozy paradox forms around this question: what does it mean for something to have a yellow color and taste that “is” lemon or banana, but not be a lemon or banana? Neuroscientist György Buzsáki proposes that “Learning is a matching process between a pre-existing pattern [in the brain] and an outside world event that happens to coincide with the presence of that pattern.” Maybe this color translation is like a neural massage, creating parallel patterns speaking back and forth: therapeutic, meditative, brain love.