smoke & filters ...

Janell N. Strouse | MFA Exhibition

This project is a personal narrative about mourning the loss of my father while he is still alive.

SMOKE & FILTERS is about grief, both anticipatory and in-the-thick-of-it heartache. Through sculpture and photography, this selection of works navigates complicated feelings of love for my father and frustration that he was a flawed human.

The materials used in many of the works came from my dad: 625 Black Cherry White Claw cans that he drank after giving up his cancer treatments, fluorescent shop lights from his garage, the last five cigarettes he had left when he passed, etc. There were tiny details hidden throughout the show. Mementos, peeking out, a reminder that this was a real man.

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quality of life / yes you can can

a collaboration with Michael Shane Terrell.

Before the exhibition, Quality of Life / Yes You Can Can had been in two other shows, but this was the first time it stood in the middle of the gallery, revealing the can tops, all open, facing down, pouring out. It was held together by clear brackets, 3-d printed by Michael Shane Terrell, and a strap created out of the sheet seen in the photo “11 oxygen tanks and a BIC lighter” and tie-down straps from Dad’s garage. The piece was stabilized, almost suspended by this strap, connected to the ceiling by a hook. The aluminum of the cans popped and creaked as the temperature in the gallery fluctuated. The entire sculpture felt like it could come crashing down at any moment.

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funeral film

an experiment in letting go.

My favorite part of the Funeral Film series is the spot in “Calling Hours” where a snapshot of Dad as a 19-year-old laying on the couch with my sister when she was a baby appears right above his head in the casket. Heartbreakingly beautiful and not something I could ever have imagined or created on my own. It feels silly to say out loud or type on this page, but it was like he did that for us. Let us know he is still here, still thinking of us.

The three images were printed on backlight film and installed in rusty shop lights from Dad’s garage.

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you’re being dramatic

the wedding dress I’ll never get to wear as my dad walks me down the aisle.

This piece was updated for display in this gallery. A platform was built to showcase the object created from the installation in December 2023. This platform includes encaustic transfers of Marlboro Special Select UPC codes, a call back to my childhood of cutting out Marlboro Miles to redeem for shirts and camping gear. To the right of the platform, a video of the first hour of the original installation looped, highlighting the transformation of the piece as well as people’s interaction with the piece as the evening progressed.

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*Video of first hour of installation opening, December 1, 2023.

tax tufting

an ongoing project.

22 of 48 tobacco tax stamp rugs were completed for the exhibition. Each day the configuration of the rugs was changed, forcing you to move around the space differently. Nothing stopped viewers from walking on the rugs, and some configurations made it impossible to avoid, so the rugs were physically changed throughout the exhibition. The rugs from the states my dad never visited (places he will never get to visit, experiences he will never get to have) were displayed on the wall. They were wrapped in cellophane and placed on shelves, like unopened packs of cigarettes.

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the marks we leave behind.

original photo series and documentary book.

Selections from The Marks We Leave Behind were displayed on the wall as you entered the gallery. To the left of the series was the book, available for viewers to flip through and read if they so chose. The images were hung untraditionally, almost like a heartbeat line. They were strategically placed to create a rhythm, one image shot straight on, the next one from above, all ending with one of Dad’s last cigarettes in a glass jar on the floor.

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