Spotlight on Intersections@5: Allan deSouza

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.

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Installation view of Allan deSouza’s The World Series (2012)

Allan deSouza’s The World Series (2012), was inspired by Jacob Lawrence’s iconic 1941 Migration Series. While Lawrence’s paintings document the historical migration of African Americans from the South to Northern cities, deSouza presents a visual “script” for a fictional migration to becoming American, seen through the signage and psychology of metaphorical and political sites. Merging the past into the present, deSouza captures what might seem to be otherwise fleeting moments to stage possible futures that speak to the real effects of time and migration within the contemporary world. The four images here, from the full sequence of 60 photographs, depict pivotal points in deSouza’s “script,” in which his fictional migrant undergoes literal rites of passage, moving from one location and one time period to another.

Spotlight on Intersections@5: Alyson Shotz

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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

John F. Simon Jr.’s Creative Process

Intersections @ 5 artist John F. Simon Jr. thinks of his work Linear Moments as “a metaphor for the creative process. We begin with some idea of what we’re going to make and then as the creative process grows, the meaning grows, and the piece itself gets larger and larger.”