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Second Skin, 2023
Leather remnants, upholstery tacks, salvaged Eastern hemlock branch
Second Skin #1, 57 x 94 x 12 in
Second Skin #2, 57 x 63 x 6 in
Jean Shin: Second Skin, Installation at Praise Shadows Gallery, Brookline, MA
Second Skin transforms the leather shroud from Jean Shin’s 2021 installation Fallen into two wall hangings suspended from hemlock branches. For Fallen, Shin Shin enshrouded a large 140-year-old eastern hemlock tree on Olana, Frederic Church’s former estate, with colorful leather discards repurposed from the fashion industry. The hemlock was one of many that Church had planted to replace those felled by the leather tanning industry in the 19th Century.
Reminiscent of large maps, these tapestries bear the contours of the tree trunk’s form and the remarkable color shifts that mark exposure levels to the sun. If Fallen was the tree’s open funeral, these works are the recording of its memory.