Sarah Hollis Perry and Rachel Perry: water, water

Water, water was the first collaborative museum show for mother–daughter artists Sarah Hollis Perry and Rachel Perry. In addition to maintaining separate practices, the artists have been working collaboratively since they overlapped as students at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2000. In their work they are interested in exploring the cyclical nature of both the natural world and the generations in a family.

The artists organized and filmed their video performance “Drawing a Line with the Tide” in July 2011 using eighty volunteers from the seaside village of Annisquam in Gloucester, Massachusetts where they both live. Moving to avoid the inevitable, the performers demonstrate a futile attempt to control nature with its stubborn adherence to the circling of time.

Among works of photography and sculpture, also included in the exhibition were five short films in which the artists explore aspects of identity and the complexity of the mother-daughter relationship of dependence, independence, and interdependence. One left hand and one right hand perform simple acts of washing and other routine tasks, which engage the viewer in the tease of expectation and uncertainty. All works were made in 2011-2012.