Carolyn Enz Hack: Change Your Mind
Encountering Carolyn Enz Hack’s sculpture is a full-body experience. Upon entering the gallery you engage with a large shape hovering slightly over your head, consisting of layer upon layer of wire mesh. The eye follows the form as it sweeps back and down to its generative point, where it meets a pyramid of mesh suspended above a mirror. The simultaneous presence and absence of material in the mesh is heightened by the addition of paint, which sometimes coats the wire and other times clots the openings. Interspersed within the layers are tiny mirrors generating little bursts of light and movement. All combine to create a crystalline design.
The formal interplay between the sculptural elements and the confines of the small gallery intensifies tension between viewer and object. We seem to be in some mysterious, or sacred, or theatrical space, with the sculptural elements, environment, and viewer constituting a metaphorical interconnected whole pointedly anchored by a reflecting pool.
— Mara Williams, Chief Curator
For me, art making has always been about problem solving. Every piece is an experiment that challenges me to solve technical problems and infuse the work with meaning.
I like working with translucent media, especially when those materials can be layered to make areas of greater or lesser density. Using varying sizes of wire mesh, I can create objects that have a mystery about them stemming from our perception of changing density and uncertain edges. This sense of an object that has no exact boundaries and no real mass can be heightened through the use of mirrors and other reflective media.
I’m interested in poking and prodding ideas, giving shape to thought, thinking about the stuff that holds us together. Building by hand allows for imperfections that create new opportunities for transformation and questioning of symbolic meaning. What I find most challenging is creating objects that prod the viewer to pause and wonder, to ask the question “What am I looking at, and what does it bring up in me?”
— Carolyn Enz Hack
RELATED RESOURCES
RELATED EVENTS
January 14, Saturday, 11 a.m. – Opening Reception
January 28, Saturday, 1 p.m. – Curator Tour with Mara Williams
February 23, Thursday, 7 p.m. – Artist Talk: Carolyn Enz Hack
