Boom

A solo exhibition by Christine Weir

October 9 - October 27, 2024

Opening Reception, Saturday, October 12, 5-9pm

Keystone Gallery presents Boom, a multi-media exhibition by the artist Christine Weir. Weir grew up in Pennsylvania, an hour north of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. After returning home from elementary school one noteworthy day in 1979, she was told to stay indoors, where she watched the news of the partial nuclear meltdown unfold. This, along with the escalating threat of nuclear war in the 1980’s, marked the beginning of Weir’s concern with, and interest in, nuclear risk.

Boom emerged from a recent side project where the artist adapted the traditional craft of needle felting to make small-scale mushroom cloud sculptures for friends. Made of raw wool and placed in small acrylic boxes, each was conceived as a sort of talisman to contain and neutralize fear. By putting the worst possible thing in a little box, perhaps it meant that other difficult life events could be tamed.

For this show, Weir created a felt mushroom cloud over 7 feet tall. The exhibition will also include a number of small drawings based on nuclear test scars from the Nevada Test Site, and a large paper sculpture that explores the process of nuclear fission.

Boom is a show about something we all have to contend with: nuclear anxiety. It questions why we harness nature in order to destroy it, but also highlights the undeniable dark beauty, awe, and fascination found in this terrorizing force.

A longtime resident of Los Angeles, Weir received a BFA in Studio Art with a drawing concentration from Kutztown University in Pennsylvania and an MS in Criticism, Theory, and History of Art, Design, and Architecture from Pratt Institute. She worked in the art world in New York City and Los Angeles, including a nearly decade-long career in the auction business as an Art Appraiser and Cataloguer. For the last eighteen years she has been focusing on making art and raising a child, with a short foray into trying to understand chemistry. She is currently obsessed with learning as much as she can about particle physics, specifically, and matter, in general.