Tag Archives: contemporary sculpture

Spotlight on Intersections@5: Alyson Shotz

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Shotz_Allusion of Gravity

Installation shot of Alyson Shotz’s Allusion of GravityPhoto: Lee Stalsworth

The Phillips celebrates the fifth anniversary of its Intersections contemporary art series with Intersections@5, an exhibition comprising work by 20 of the participating artists. In this blog series, each artist writes about his or her work on view.

The structure of this sculpture is inspired by looking at diagrams of space, mass, and how they interact to create the gravity we experience. I hope to allow the viewer to think about space in a different way: what is empty space, what does it look like, what shapes can it take?

Allusion of Gravity is made with clear, round glass beads which reflect the light and let the sculpture transform with the changing natural light during the day. Each bead also acts as a magnifying glass for all the other beads, creating many mini-sculptures within the larger sculpture.

Allusion of Gravity is one version of what I imagine empty space to be like. It was my first sculpture exploring the structure of space itself, and began a series I am still working on today.

Alyson Shotz

Spotlight on Intersections@5: Kate Shepherd

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The Phillips celebrates the fifth anniversary of its Intersections contemporary art series with Intersections@5, an exhibition comprising work by 20 of the participating artists. In this blog series, each artist writes about his or her work on view.

Shepherd_Chrysanthemum

Kate Shepherd, Chrysanthemum, 2010. Oil and enamel on paper, 28 x 38 in. Purchase, The Hereward Lester Cooke Memorial Fund and Gift of C. Richard Belger and Evelyn R. Craft, 2010

While it seems to be a relatively small task to make a “medium-sized” work, it is a surprisingly hard challenge. My work tends to be door-like. The figures (however you define that term) inhabit a space that echos real life—with a gravity and stance that living beings share. On the other hand, the smaller painting puts us in a position of looking upon an image, or in the case of Chrysanthemum, upon a mere idea of an object, a geometric “absolute” construction. I wanted to point to Mondrian’s copious flower studies; my yellow made that connection clear.

Black Tiles is a lyrical optical trick, a graceful linear movement to behold. How do those straight lines billow? Unlike the paradigm of a painting acting as window, we look upon this image and not through it.

Kate Shepherd

 

Spotlight on Intersection@5: Jeanne Silverthorne

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The Phillips celebrates the fifth anniversary of its Intersections contemporary art series with Intersections@5, an exhibition comprising work by 20 of the participating artists. In this blog series, each artist writes about his or her work on view.

Silverthorne_Dandelion Clock

Jeanne Silverthorne, Dandelion Clock, 2012. Platinum silicon rubber, phosphorescent pigment on wire, 33 x 29 x 16 in. The Hereward Lester Cooke Memorial Fund, 2014. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC

Dandelion Clock is a contemporary vanitas, a reminder of transience and mortality. It is infected by signs of morbid excess (the giant size), decay (the faded or “blown” flower), and toxicity (it glows in the dark). Collapsing under the weight of history and new technologies, traditional studio practice is an excavation of the past, offering an archeology of loss. Flirting with the genre of the floral painting, Dandelion Clock embraces the baroque exuberance and post-modern melancholy of the nearly extinct.

Jeanne Silverthorne