Vanessa Holyoak (US, Canada) and Antoine Chesnais (France) are a Los Angeles-based artist duo working across installation, sculpture, photography and language. They construct uncanny, minimalist environments that allude to notions of memory, intimate and ecological loss, and the cognitive overload of the present.

While in residency at Cove Park they will be working on gathering photographic material drawn from the local surroundings for their ongoing Souvenir series. These photo-sculptures stage site-sensitive analogue photographs of various ecosystems amidst recreations of the landscape that draw from found natural materials. The souvenirs can be read as specimens or memory capsules for a future marked by ecological disappearance and disaster.

Their work has been shown throughout the US in art spaces and galleries in New York City, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, and in Los Angeles at Real Pain, Eastside International, Human Resources, the Bendix Building, and the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, among others. They have a forthcoming group exhibition at Casa Lü in Mexico City.

Holyoak holds a dual MFA in Photography & Media and Writing from the California Institute of the Arts and a BA from Barnard College. Chesnais holds an MFA in Photography from l’École des Gobelins and a BA from l’Université d’Avignon.

www.vanessaholyoak.com
antoinechesnais.net

Instagram @vanessaholyoak  @antoine.chesnais