Scum of the earth

Exhibition Dates:
September 12 - October 31, 2025

Opening Reception:
Friday, September 12, 2025, 5:00-9:00pm

Exhibition Walk Through with the Artist:
Saturday, September 13, 2025, 11:00am

Rivalry Projects is thrilled to present scum of the earth, our first solo exhibition with Tucson-based artist rocki swiderski. The exhibition continues an interest in the ecosystems of varied landscapes and how scum embodies literal and metaphorical states of resistance. Including new painting and sculpture, the exhibition opens on Friday, September 15, 5:00-9:00pm. The artist will be leading an exhibition walk through on Saturday, September 13 at 11:00am. The exhibition will be on view from September 12 - October 31, 2025.

for every bug a thousand puncture wounds. for every trash fire at least one puddle of melted aluminum in the shape of your fear. polyester flowers make way for a world we won’t be forced to inhabit. dry depleted soil atop the lifeless ruins to come, making way for their watch dogs and their amniotic spells and their cast iron gates and their melted paper pulp and their guardians and their plastic stems. i swear at this point id give anything for some sludge. - rocki swiderski

The exploration of landscape and resources is at the core of swiderski’s practice. This interest is informed by their primary residence in the American Southwest, but is understood through the contrast of alternative geographies encountered through seasonal movement across the United States. Each painting in this exhibition depicts a non-place – water under a bridge at sunset, a milkweed flower growing through a chainlink fence, reflections in murky, mosquito filled water – seemingly forgettable places of transition, that are instead close inspections of ecology and its boundaries. This interest in the banal often includes depictions of a landscape’s hostile inhabitants - the pests, agitators, or disruptors - that punctuate the environment. 

Scum is defined as “the layer of dirt or froth on top of a liquid.” Its derogatory connotations come from scum’s fertility - it is a site where the unwanted breeds. It is the problem, something we’d like to forget, and yet it is also a site of possibility. It is matter on the edge, both with and without boundaries, and it is where the battlefield, and the resistance, brews. In this body of work, swiderski is interested in the possibilities of these liminal, transitional spaces as a metaphor for resilience in the face of our changing social, political, and increasingly militarized environment. 

In a life perhaps worth fighting for (Calamus 24), their largest painting to date, swiderski depicts a crop of river reeds found in a pond at the Griffis Sculpture Park. The painting considers the Greek myth of Kalamos, who after losing his lover Karpos, drowned himself and was transformed into a reed. In his grief, he became one with the murky landscape of his despair. Rendered in their signature jewel tones, this work creates a somewhat faulty illusion of calm or reflection, and, yet, a helicopter hovers, noted only by its reflection in the water. The paintings in this exhibition foster similar illusions. Grounded in the beauty of liminal landscapes, they have a palpable tension, and become settings for a potential conflict. Paired with raw, jagged sculptures composed of found materials - such as trash, plastic, hay, or metal, - swiderski has created both the setting and the tools for resistance. 

This summer, swiderski was the first artist in residence in a new pilot program at the Griffis Sculpture Park in East Otto. Spending the summer in Western New York, the resulting body of work features sites encountered en route to and during their time in the region, along with objects compiled along the way. Thank you to the Ashford Hollow Foundation for their support of this project. 

WORKS

Installation ImageS

About the Artist

rocki swiderski (b. 1994, California) lives and works in Tucson, Arizona. Spanning disciplines, swiderski manipulates color and form to capture the untold essence of the desert southwest. Their focus is currently on boundaries, barriers, natural resources, looking at the sky, and daydreaming about the new world. swiderski’s work has been included in recent exhibitions at Everybody (Tucson, AZ), Stellarhighway (Brooklyn, NY), Rivalry Projects (Buffalo, NY), Georgetown Steamplant (Seattle, WA), and Arusha Gallery (London, EN). They are a 2024 recipient of Night Bloom, Grants for Artists through MOCA Tucson and the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts. Currently swiderski also co-runs Precious Cargo, a gallery and artist publication project in Tucson, AZ. swiderski is represented by Rivalry Projects, Buffalo, NY.