The weird and the wonderful strikes again in the form of Caroline Cox, who by all accounts I should know of already. Edward Winkleman called her, “Williamsburg art world royalty” and that was in 2005 so I feel extraordinarily behind the times on this one. I should note that I write this as I sit on the train coming back from a day trip to NYC for work – I saw more people on each city block than I see in Boston in a whole day and while exhausted I’m still energized from the big City – so blog I will now that work is “done.”
Cox uses absolutely fabulous materials to create her otherworldly installations and sculptures. The above, Tangle-Optical, looks like something you’d see on a Discovery program about the DEEP OCEAN, where all is black except weirdly lit from within creatures. Yet they’re made of generally everyday items like industrial netting and the like.
Plasmodial Void, above is also of industrial netting – I love the monochromatic-ness of this one. They look like bursts of ink out of a disrupted sea creature suspended in water…I’m a little tired if you can’t tell.
Just look what can be made with millinery fabric and tubing. I have been recently getting acquainted with a magical maker of headwear in Boston, Marie Galvin, so I can, in my mind’s eye, envisage this material – I love this use of it to make organic looking sculptures.
I can’t even begin to guess all the materials in this piece, Opti-Squirm – maybe netting and wire, foam beads, rubber or glass ball, springs, who knows – many of these pieces could be any household thing. I just love it. I do wonder sometimes – one the things I blog about – if I owned it, where would I put it. This one also begs that question. I have so many things I love but so little cool display tactics in my repertoire that would properly support the work from a wall / ceiling / lighting / space perspective…
A beautiful close up. It reminds me of the room of Dale Chihuly glass vessels at Boston’s MFA earlier this year. I went with R’s mom and we just stood in this room with a glass ceiling staring at all of the colorful vessels he’d installed overhead – it was as totally new way of looking at glass and made you feel amongst the colors and shapes similar to this.
Tags: 3D, household objects, material, nature, sculpture, underwater