Sarah Stevenson: Nothing Hidden

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Sarah Stevenson, "Vessels," 2018

detail, mixed media

For the past 30 years, Sarah Stevenson has been making sculptural work that considers and defines space in the most simple and elegant of ways. Like drawings in air, wire and string are arranged into bilateral and almost symmetrical forms and are suspended from the ceiling like a weightless bloom of jellyfish or floating microscopic particles.

Starting always with drawing, forms are mapped out on paper in a constellation of lines. The drawing then becomes the pattern or blueprint for the sculpture, the places where verticals and horizontals intersect act as guides to determine the tie points where strings are attached to a series of wire rings. Between each connection, an open weave of wire and thread forms a grid. As the grid builds the form emerges, defined by variations in length of string, tension, and how slack or taut the weave.

This simple method of making, and the adaptability of the grid, creates an ideal formula with infinite possibilities. The finished forms, far from simple, are akin to mathmatic ciphers, or scientific illustrations showing us that the natural world is equally complex and beautiful in microscopic or cosmic proportions.