Molly Gochman’s Drenched is set to open at 6 p.m. on March 8, 2018, as a part of FotoFest 2018, at the Deborah Colton Gallery in Houston located at 2445 North Blvd, Houston, TX 77098.

Drenched will combine three of her works: Before, Waterfalls Wept and Surrogates. Alone, these works represent many different things. Together, they seek to explore, in the context of both Houston and India, the myriad ways water works to build, destroy, connect, devour and grow.

Before, specifically, is an examination of life in Houston after Hurricane Harvey and in India after the extreme flooding. Harvey was the costliest tropical cyclone on record, inflicting nearly $200 billion in damage all over Houston. In a four-day period, it became the wettest storm on record in the country. And the resulting floods inundated hundreds of thousands of homes, displaced more than 30,000 people and resulted in 100 deaths.

Meanwhile, as a result of heavy monsoon rains that led to flooding in South Asia, more than 1,200 people died across India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Over 40 million people were immediately affected by the devastation, and 1.8 million children were left out of school — but the numbers continued to grow with time.

The images Gochman created for Before are memorials to the emotional loss caused by flooding. She combined images of flood-damaged personal items and parts of homes that became piles of trash with images of fabric, and transferred them onto aluminum.

“All of the images I saw of flooded towns and cities in India depicted brown water — the same color as the water in Houston, Port Arthur, Galveston and Rockport. The fabric you see reminds me of the colors of India, these disasters and of water,” Gochman said.

FotoFest 2018 Biennial will run from March 10 to April 22 in participating art spaces across the city, and Gochman’s exhibit will be up for the entirety of the Biennial. Opening night and an artist talk will be on March 8 at 6 PM, and a sound bath meditation led by Sara Auster will be on March 10 at 2:30 PM and 6:30 PM.

For more information about Molly Gochman’s work, visit mollygochman.com or call 212-256-1932.

About Molly Gochman
Molly Gochman is an interdisciplinary, conceptual artist and activist based in New York City. Gochman has exhibited her work at Lincoln Center, New York; Deborah Colton Gallery, Houston; Diverse Works, Houston; Chashama, New York; Sara Roney Gallery, Sydney; Grace Farms, New Canaan; Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston; Zilkha Hall, Houston; Elsewhere, Greensboro; and other traditional and non-traditional exhibition spaces. Gochman is known for activating public spaces and creating participatory experiences through large and small scale installations.

Attached photo courtesy of Molly Gochman.