FEATURED ARTS
Soo Sunny Park on "Biolath"
Written By Kelly Sennott (ksennott@hippopress.com)
Images: Courtesy Photo
Soo Sunny Park’s “BioLath” seems to sparkle in the Currier Museum of Art’s Putnam Gallery.
The site-specific installation comprises giant boulder-like shapes made from metal lath and colored plexiglass strips, which are suspended from the ceiling and standing on the floor. Light streams through windows and from four artificial light sources and casts shadows against the walls. The sculptures glow.
Your experience may be different depending on the time of day you visit, said Samantha Cataldo, the museum’s assistant curator, during a recent walk-through. The sunlight’s intensity changes as the hours move on, but more importantly, the artificial lights sit on tracks. The shadows move.
“She wanted to mimic the movement and speed of the sunlight, so the walls are always activated by these shadows,” Cataldo said, pointing to the cross-hatching shapes reflected on the walls, some clear, some fuzzy, depending on the proximity of the lath forms.
Park, who lives in the Upper Valley and teaches at Dartmouth, has a resume brimming with installation art, and she’s worked with an assortment of materials: chain-link fencing, steel, paper clips, cotton strings, latex paint, glue, egg cartons, balloons. She loves construction materials, the kinds you never see because they’re hidden by paint or plaster, but the one she’s most fascinated with is light.
“Light is everywhere. You don’t think of it as something that’s present — you focus on the object you see. I’m interested in trying to make light as a form itself a component in the work,” Park said via phone.
The installation is part of the museum’s “Contemporary Connections” series, offering New England artists a platform to exhibit new, experimental work. Cataldo reached out to Park about two years ago to gauge her interest, and Park devised the concept and created the mock-up before constructing the lath forms in her personal studio. She spent the entire week before her Feb. 25 opening on-site, installing and finishing the largest pieces.
Despite the planning and prep work, it’s always interesting to see how it comes together in the end.
“I have a clear visual expectation of how it’s going to work, but really, as the work comes together in space, there’s always a surprise, uncalculated element,” Park said.
Cataldo said “BioLath” has generated a great deal of interest and dialogue. Kids have said the forms look like marshmallows or clouds, and unlike so many paintings and sculptures in the museum, visitors can get close to the work. Their bodies cast shadows on the walls alongside the lath forms and they become part of the installation. They don’t just view it, but are enveloped by it. Or at least, that’s the goal.
“I don’t make representational forms. You can’t say, this is a landscape from Vermont,” Park said. “The end result is not of anything specific. It’s about the experience.”
Come See BioLath
Where: Currier Museum of Art, 150 Ash St., Manchester
When: On view through Aug. 6
Contact: currier.org, 669-6144
Admission: $15 for adults, $13 for seniors, $10 for students, $5 for youth ages 13 to 17, free for anyone younger; during School Vacation Week Monday, April 24, through Friday, April 28, there’s a $5 flat rate admission for anyone 13 and older
Upcoming Events
Storytime in the Gallery: Monday, April 24, at 11:30 a.m. Hear children’s librarian read Roar by Maira Kalman and create a wire figure, all ages welcome
Creative Studio: Collaborative Project with Soo Sunny Park: Wednesday, April 26, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., guests will collaborate with the artist on a community project, all ages welcome
Building With Wire: Friday, April 28, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., complete