Arlene Shechet: Moon in the Morning

The exhibition’s title, “Moon in the Morning”, reflects Arlene Shechet’s longstanding interest in unions of seemingly disparate, incongruous materials and forms. Beautiful and disorienting, a moon in the morning can be understood in the context of the visual paradoxes and contradictions Shechet explores in her sculptures. Shechet’s methodology for creating idiosyncratic, biomorphic, boldly colored sculptures is both highly technical and entirely intuitive—she does not employ drawings or armatures as part of her process. Guided by a general impulse, the artist engages in a spirited back and forth with her works, embracing improvisation and chance as she brings a sculpture into being. In “Moon in the Morning”, the artist animates her individual works with combinations of geometric and organic forms, cultivating a dialogue between them. Physical enactments of fragmentation and cohesion—and their attendant emotional and psychological resonances—are central to the artist’s practice and approach to exhibition making.