Events

Lora Vahlsing: What the Paper Reveals

Details:

Viewing our exhibits is free because of the generosity of Horicon Bank. This exhibition was supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Calendar

When:

January 28, 2021 – March 13, 2021 all-day

2021-01-28T00:00:00-06:00

2021-03-14T00:00:00-06:00

Exhibition will be on display from January 28, 2021 – March 13, 2021

What the Paper Reveals by Lora Vahlsing

As a visual artist, I create sensorial experiences that invite contemplation. I use familiar materials and shapes, seeing them in new ways. In my current series What the Paper Reveals, the pieces are both open-ended and precise. My vision focuses on slow art, objects that need precision over a sustained period. My origins are in poetry, drawing, and movement. I invite viewers to re-conceive the world around them, referencing the natural world through intricate forms and light.

I sculpt paper because I enjoy the challenge of transforming a familiar material. Paper holds the recorded light of trees and I’m interested in this history, the origins of a material. I’m driven to discover and explore subjects of place, memory, and time. It’s an insistence of expressing personal narratives in their complexity: beauty and pain, light and shadow, private and public. I sculpt paper in two and three-dimensional forms to heighten spatial perception. My pieces are largely monochromatic because I’m drawn to the subtleties of shape; an often muted or limited color palette heightens visual sensitivity.

The physicality of sewing by hand is essential, even if the stitches aren’t visible. I’m creating my own webs, intricate stitches barely perceptible from a distance. I’m fascinated with the texture of stitches, and how they hold materials together. The scarring is important, to memorialize places of healing and acknowledge their beauty.