First, there is beauty — graceful in its singularity, unmarred and untouchable. Then comes a state of paradox: beauty that sits in a glass box, dripping with stimuli and barraged by stones. One cannot exist without the other, and more often than not, Aaron Brodeur finds himself creating within the latter. The result is “Vitamin Chlorine,” his most recent exhibition for the Mary Cosgrove Dolphin Gallery at Worcester State University.
The show’s title leads the onlooker down the right path. Born a “Xennial,” Brodeur’s perspective draws on two cultural epochs divided by a “digital transformation that reshaped human experience.” For him, this shift was far from easy.
“Vitamin Chlorine speaks to the condition that we find ourselves within. We’re promised improvements and progression and stability, but ultimately, we’re in a system that we didn’t quite ask for,” Brodeur shared, “I’m interested in contradiction; that something we’re told is good for us can be the same thing tearing us apart.”