PONY GATE

The Famous Hardware Building & CACHE, Springdale, AR August - December, 2022

August 18, 2022–The windows of the Famous Hardware building in Downtown Springdale are once again activated with an art installation. This time, the windows have been brought to life by artist Amelia Briggs, commissioned by Creative Arkansas Community Hub & Exchange (CACHE) with funding from the Tyson Family Foundation.

Driven by questions regarding links between identity and childhood, visual artist Amelia Briggs transformed the windows of the Famous Hardware Store into an uncanny dream of lush embodiments.  A theater, teeming with exuberant textures and bold, playful hues that waver between odious and cozy, subverts notions of value and humor while generating an abstract sense of longing. 

Pony Gate functions as a series of dioramas, where each window serves as a model, animating the indescribable nature of our formative selves and personal mythologies. The colors, shapes, and lines associated with the toys, games, and objects from the artist’s youth are broken down and pieced together to form bloated objects that appear inflated. Acting as relics, each artwork is personal and universal, inviting us to question our individual experiences and bringing us closer to the identities shaped over time.