Alyson Shotz "Fundamental Forces"
Carolina Nitsch Project Room
This event has ended.
Carolina Nitsch presents Fundamental Forces, a solo exhibition of new photographs, etchings, and sculpture by Alyson Shotz.
Alyson Shotz often employs scientific theories, concepts, and methodologies as a launching pad to create her work. Fundamental Forces, a suite of 6 silver gelatin prints, began as an experiment in molten glass during the artist’s residency at the Pilchuck Glass School. Alyson staged an experiment to recreate, in glass, the effects of blowing large scale soap bubble. A documentary video of this process will be on view in the back room of the gallery. The resulting massive glass tube did not survive, but Alyson brought the fragments back to her studio and projected light through the shards. The light through the stressed glass cast unique and compelling shadows on a wall, which she then photographed, thus recapturing and portraying in visual form, the intense forces of heat and light that were employed in the making of these works.
Three Views of an Object are 3 large scale etchings depicting an undulating form (from the series of drawings titled “Folded Spaces”) from three different perspectives. These prints are technically fascinating because they began as vector based computer drawings, but were then translated to the centuries old medium of etching, thus creating a kind of art historical analog/digital bridge.
Five stainless steel cubes titled Magnetic Force stand in the gallery on wooden pedestals. Clustered about on the cubes are hundreds of small steel balls like a nest of alien eggs. These stainless steel balls are held to the cubes purely with magnetic force; inside the cubes are very strong neodymium magnets that attract the steel balls on the outside.
Lastly, one entire wall is covered with very thin strips of cut mirror creating a cascade of disjointed reflections that is reminiscent of looking through rain or water. Actively engaging the viewer, this installation mimics the experience we have in viewing natural phenomenon, in that it changes constantly throughout the day, depending on the ambient light and temporal conditions.
[Image: Alyson Shotz "Magnetic Force #1" (2009) Stainless steel balls, mirror, neodymium magnet, in plexi-case
6 x 6 in. Edition of 6 variants, signed, numbered, dated
Published by Carolina Nitsch]
Media
Schedule
from March 11, 2011 to April 30, 2011
Opening Reception on 2011-03-10 from 18:00 to 20:00