Milan Warner: Where growths sleep but cannot dream
MoCA Arlington resident artist Milan Warner’s Where growths sleep but cannot dream situates viewers in an alternate reality where fictional growths are allowed to flourish. Turning the gallery into an outsized petri dish and casting viewers in the role of curious scientists, Warner creates sculptures and installations that foreground the strangeness of the human body, often to disquieting ends. Highly textured and organic in form, the Warner’s growths seem to creep, spread and grow along the gallery’s floors and walls. The artworks, which bear a resemblance to body parts, hair, flesh, and organs, are self-possessed entities of Warner’s own creation, complete with unique names, personalities, taxonomies, growth habits and histories.
Where growths sleep but cannot dream employs grotesquery and beauty to make a commentary on human behavior and relationships. An outgrowth of Warner’s fascination with science, the artist cleverly blends literary magical realism, humor, myth-making and storytelling to create a narrative that expresses the ineffable truths of life.
Milan Warner (b.1998) is a multimedia artist working in sculpture and installation. Raised in the Philippines, Warner holds BA in studio art from the University of Maryland (2021). In August 2021, Warner completed her first public sculpture as an artist-in-residence at Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, MN. Recent group exhibitions include Wish You Were Here, MoCA Arlington (2024). Warner lives and works in the Washington, DC Metro area.
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