NYAB Event - Caroline Mak "Chain Reaction"

Caroline Mak "Chain Reaction"

BAC Gallery

This event has ended.

This new 25 foot long, site-specific wall installation was created specifically for BAC Gallery. A seemingly mundane object, a potted plant, initiates a series of chain reactions that travel down the length of the gallery wall. Along the way, collections of objects collide, creating visual puns that are a whimsical play on each object’s intended function.

Rather than attempting to create a large scale kinetic installation, Mak uses commonly found everyday household objects to weave a complex directional, wall-sized collage where carefully chosen formal elements dictate the topsy-turvy, yet strangely logical, sequence. Six-pack rings and garden hoses find their way into the work, becoming critical junctions in this long wall installation.

Chain Reaction continues Mak’s fascination with attempting to translate and recreate natural processes using man-made and found materials. In the process of trying to re-construct and further understand these processes, systems start to become apparent in the spaces they are assigned to, each self-contained worlds with their own inherent logic.

Caroline Mak is an installation and mixed media artist from Hong Kong, now based in Brooklyn, NY. She received a BA in Biology from Stanford University (2002) and an MFA from the University of Chicago (2005). She has been the recipient of an Emerging Artist Fellowship from Socrates Sculpture Park, a BRIC Media Fellowship and she was an NEA Fellow at the Elsewhere Collaborative Residency during the summer or 2010. Exhibition highlights include the installations at Socrates Sculpture Park, NY; Islip Art Museum, NY and ‘Mirage’ at Hong Kong Art Fair. Mak was a resident at Gallery Aferro, Newark, NJ in 2010, and will have a solo exhibition at Aferro in September 2011. In addition, her work will be exhibited at ArtSpace New Haven in the spring of 2012.