Broken sleeps is an installation of new sculptures by Fiona Connor, her third solo presentation with Château Shatto. Recognized for her fidelitous reproductions of objects patinated with human use and social intervention, Broken sleeps marks a new development for the artist: rather than precisely following the script of an existing object, these sculptures are realized through a process of material translation and poetic animation.

The foundational form of the exhibition is the black convertible bed frame, iterated in four different designs. Connor compresses and stretches their skeletal forms, using drawing, flat-pack construction and bronze casting to unfold different formal and symbolic possibilities.

Connor’s first experiments with convertible bed frames were part of a larger project of ‘drawing something under itself’, where she laid the bed frames flat and traced their silhouettes on large sheets of paper underneath. The beds performed as both subject and obstacle, with the artist reaching over, under and through these impediments, to make the drawings. At the same time, the process acknowledged the paradox of perception. Perception reaches out to the world, yet it cannot turn around to catch sight of itself.

The resulting large-scale drawings provide an outline through which Connor expands the forms in space. Unraveling the industrial move from diagram to functional object, Connor’s process distorts the translation, dragging it into another zone. Through applying this drawing technique to adaptive and open bed frames, Connor connects a process of the underside of perception to an object that is designed to serve sleep, or the underside of consciousness.

Bracing the installation of beds in the center of the gallery is a wall drawing that reproduces tire marks left on concrete road barriers. Importing the motion and impact of the car’s tread, Connor theatricalizes the gallery as a place of speed, of observation and recognition.

The artist would like to thank Ari Diamond-Topelson and Reed Donaldson for their help with prototyping and incredible assistance.