Grounded Attention
Erin Mallea and Ally Messer
March 6 – 29, 2026
Opening Reception / Friday, March 6, 6–9 PM
Artist Talk / Saturday, March 28, 2–3PM
Hours: Sat-Sun from 2-6 PM
This March, Grizzly Grizzly invites viewers to lower their gaze and attune to the living and nonliving worlds we often overlook. Grounded Attention pairs work by Erin Mallea and Ally Messer, whose practices consider what human-centered society routinely ignores. Through sculpture and installation, the exhibition brings together industrial remnants and heavy metals with flora- and fauna-derived materials such as wool and handmade paper embedded with seeds. Amid escalating global ecological crisis, both artists propose sustained observation and care as a way to reconsider our relationship to the natural world and the consequences of our collective decisions.
Erin Mallea examines constructions of culture and nature, land and time, as entry points into contemporary social, political, and environmental conditions. Her hanging installation Condition Report assembles tiny found and treated materials that dangle from secondhand chains, tracing networks shaped by extraction and industry. Plastic nurdles and polyurethane foam were collected from the Ohio River downstream of the Shell Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex in Monaca, PA. Referencing regional steel waste once regularly dumped into landfills now occupied by subdivisions and defunct malls, the polished and patinated bronze and aluminum slag are treated with the care typically reserved for precious metals. Mallea’s dense, brambly web rewards those who take a slow, close look.
Ally Messer practices slow, repetitive processes such as needle-felting, stop-motion animation, and paper mӑché, that cultivate attentiveness. Hope is a Choice We Make Together is an evolving, shapeshifting spiral that invites the viewers to take biodegradable paper seed pods filled with keystone plant seeds to plant in the spring. Materials sourced from sheep and trees connect the work to communities of flora and fauna. Her human-sized carrot creature, Entwined[artifact], engages a playful narrative of interspecies harmony, contrasting animal-derived fiber with vegetal form. By felting individual fibers into a stronger whole, Messer foregrounds solidarity and reciprocity, suggesting that nonhuman species can teach forms of care in a fractured world. She hopes that if we look closely, we might see the magical, queer, complex connections between us all.
Through labor-intensive fiber work, nurdle collecting, and slag patination, Grounded Attention asserts care as a form of value.