Jared Abner
Hauntology
01. Holder, 2025, cherry wood, milk paint, aluminum pins, 80.5 x 25 x 22 inches, $12,500.00
02. Suspension Ten, 2022, cherry wood, oil finish, 69 x 20 x 19 inches, $10,500.00
03. The Pillar, 2025, cherry wood, milk paint, aluminum pins, 94 x 40 x 40 inches, $12,500.00
04. The Hedge, 2025, cherry wood, steel pin, stain/varnish, 55 x 26 x 28 inches, $9400.00
05. Tuff Gnarl, 2025, cherry wood, stain/varnish, 24 x 12 x 5 inches, $3800.00
07. Sprawl, 2025, maple wood, milk paint, aluminum pins, 11 x 15 x 14 inches, $3800.00
06. Trident, 2025, walnut wood, milk paint, aluminum pins, 25 x 16 x 14 inches, $3800.00
Hauntology
I was an annoying younger brother. My brother, with whom I shared a bunkbed, often felt the brunt of my behavior. One night in my bed, I looked above my head, and noticed constellations of small, construction-paper cut-outs scotch-taped to the old plaster ceiling of our bedroom of different objects and figures. Later in the night, when my brother tried stealthily tiptoeing through the cracked door and up the ladder to his top bunk, I asked him what the paper was for. He began telling me a story. He turned on a small flash light and aimed the light at the various pieces of paper, using them as props to his story until I fell asleep. He did this frequently for me until we had separate rooms. Each night a new story but the same shapes.
Even as the picture books sprawled across the bedroom floor gradually morphed into text books as the years went by, no one ever removed the paper on the ceiling. But gradually, one by one, they fell with the tape’s deterioration. Now, that old bedroom is just a guest room – save for one small paper sword still hauntingly taped to the ceiling.
The memory of these paper shapes created a latent framework for my work today. Much like my brother's stories being contingent by the previously cut paper on the ceiling, my pieces are created through a playful exploration and the contingent property of wood. This is a further persistence of the past, the notions of hand made wood crafts. Each of the individual assemblages of a piece start out as a plank of wood. Using a mix of traditional and modern techniques, I first cut and machine subsections in a way that allows me to play and explore compositions which only present themselves in their dimensions.
Jared Abner
BFA, Rochester Institute of Technology
Two Person Shows
2D-3D at Susan Eley Fine Art, 2025
Ingrained at Susan Eley Fine Art, 2022
Wood Play at HallSpace, 2021
Group Shows
Fresh Faces at Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, 2022
New Voices for the Twenties at Susan Eley Fine Art, 2021
New England Collective XI at Galatea Fine Art, 2021