Approximate Release

The DeSoto Family Vault Gallery provides context to the themes of containment and comfort found in Ron Lambert’s sculptural installation Approximate Release. Throughout the past two years, keeping ourselves contained has given some a sense of comfort. Others have seen the need for separation as an aggressive act. Approximate Release is an investigation of that intersection of psychology and the environment.

Artist Statement

This work combines images of nature with constructed objects to examine our efforts to make sense of or control our environment. I am inspired by the sense of an American sublime vision as it is tied to western expansion and depictions of the landscape as seen in movements like the Hudson Valley painters. Those visions of locational identity help to create a sense of ownership over what we feel the need to protect. I see this playing a role in the divisiveness in our culture today.

Biography

Ron Lambert has exhibited at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Michigan, the Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum in San Antonio, the Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle, the New Britain Museum of Art in Connecticut, and The Sculpture Center in Cleveland. His video work has been screened internationally at the Crosstalk Video Festival in Hungary, the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art in South Korea, and the Sanluan Yishu project in China. Lambert’s work is in the collections of the Tacoma Art Museum, the Swedish Medical Center, and Josef Vascovitz and Lisa Goodman. He is a founding member of the COOP collective in Nashville. Lambert received his MFA from the School of Art and Design at Alfred University, and his BFA from the University of Connecticut. He is currently an associate professor at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania.