All images courtesy the artist and StolenSpace Gallery
Bursting forth organically and covered with a scaly texture, these dynamic sculptures balance vine-like tentacles and vibrant florals from a static position. American artist Crystal Wagner creates complex and gravity-defying artworks that imbue eye-pleasing palettes with dimension. Both features are an asset to Wagner, who often creates large-scale works that creep across public buildings or play with light while encased in tight spaces.
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Her latest sculptural pieces, titled Bioforms and Blooms also highlight the artist’s experimentation with two- and three-dimensional presentations, manipulation of paper, and challenging concepts of space and texture.Wagner, a former arts professor who transitioned from five years of instruction to focus on her own work, finds special joy in observing the developments of modern society while constructing her technology-influenced pieces.In a description of her latest solo show at StolenSpace Gallery, she speaks about where her pieces make sense in the larger cultural landscape: “Bioforms and Blooms explores the realm of familiar and foreign. I am interested in our relationship with the natural world and how in the new technological landscape that is the 21st century, forms and structures found in nature are more and more alien to us.”
“As hybrids," she continues, "the work draws on […] shapes from seemingly otherworldly sources, but is rooted in the deep visual and sculptural language of exotic flora, micro and macro organisms, and the rhizomatic growth.”
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