REBUS WORKS

White enamel and a little chrome glimmer from the dumpster. Lumber scrap balances in tentative stacks by the curb. Bent sheet metal fractures color across asphalt shingles and ceramic tile. Cardboard softens in the humidity. These discarded fragments — once hidden within walls, beneath floors, behind fixtures — surface, briefly untethered from their purpose. On the grey felt of my table, they become part image, part evidence. I consider what holds a house together, what breaks down, and who tends to the aftermath.

Sally Van Gorder is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the tensions between identity, self-representation, and the social structures embedded within domestic spaces. Through photography, installation, moving image, and systems of collection and classification, she examines themes of maintenance, impermanence, and the quiet narratives of everyday environments. Her practice reflects an ongoing inquiry into the objects, infrastructures, and routines that shape both our physical surroundings and our personal histories.

Van Gorder is a Teaching Professor at the North Carolina State University College of Design and serves on the shared leadership team at the arts nonprofit Small School. She holds a BA in Studio Art from Meredith College and a Master of Art + Design from North Carolina State University. Her work has been exhibited at institutions including the North Carolina Museum of Art, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Contemporary Art Museum Raleigh, Duke University Museum of Art, and The Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. Her films have screened internationally at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, DOXA Vancouver, 1 Reel Film Festival Seattle, and the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival.