Lot (Indianapolis), 2012
"For Lot (Indianapolis), I covered the windows of the women‟s restrooms on the hotel‟s reception level with vinyl silhouettes of local weeds found in downtown Indianapolis parks and vacant lots similar to the empty lot upon which this hotel was built. I have long been interested in the overlooked beauty of weeds, attracted by their simultaneously cheerful and disquieting allure. My work invokes the tradition of landscape painting and the Hudson River School, while simultaneously upending it, replacing the majestic sweep of valleys, canyons, and rivers with the weeds, a quintessential motif of the American urban landscape. With their stubborn ability to prosper in pavement cracks and other decidedly urban settings, weeds conjure the persistence of natural growth and forces even in the most highly developed urban steel and glass environments. In past projects, I have worked with weeds that have ranged from the invasive kudzu and poison ivy to the everyday dandelion."
— Kim Beck (Pittsburgh, PA)