Sharon Levy
08 Sep - 08 Dec 2007
Project Room I
Sharon Levy
The Wood
September 8 - December 8, 2007
From September 8 through December 8, 2007, the Santa Monica Museum of Art will present Sharon Levy: The Wood, the first solo Los Angeles exhibition by the artist. For Project Room 1, Levy will create a site-specific installation of large-scale sculptures depicting trees in various stages of life and death. All are silhouettes with a range of articulated branches, jigsaw-cut from pine plywood—a manufactured material returning to its original form. In addition to the trees, Levy will also install a piece entitled Cookie, which appears to be a slice from a giant tree, approximately nine feet in diameter. The Wood is a fairytale forest that triggers mixed emotions of wonder, fear, and isolation.
Levy is interested in the psychological charge of a variety of spaces, the tension between the natural and the man-made, and the dynamics created between people and their environments. For The Wood, she will use construction techniques borrowed from theater props, toys, and “knock-down” furniture to construct trees of flat wooden design that interlock at right angles to the trunk. Existing somewhere between natural object and artificial product, the plywood grain reveals the real tree that the silhouettes imitate. Cookie is formed from two canvases stretched on a frame, covered with foam rubber, and painted to resemble bark. Levy’s trees are beautiful, humorous, awkward, and anthropomorphic, yet also awe-inspiring and quietly monumental.
Sharon Levy is a mixed-media artist. She received her B.A. in Studio Art from Bard College and her M.F.A. in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego. She has participated in many group exhibitions, is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, and was artist-in-residence in 2006 at Lui Velazquez, Tijuana, Mexico. Levy lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
The Santa Monica Museum of Art is grateful to the following foundations and organizations for their support: Anonymous; The Annenberg Foundation; City of Santa Monica Cultural Arts/Organizational Support Grant Program; City of Santa Monica Community Arts Grant Programs; Elliot R. Donnelley Charitable Trust; The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation; The Getty Grant Program; Good Works Foundation; The Audrey and Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation; LLWW Foundation; Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation; Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation; and the Board of Trustees and the Friends and Members of the Santa Monica Museum of Art.
Sharon Levy
The Wood
September 8 - December 8, 2007
From September 8 through December 8, 2007, the Santa Monica Museum of Art will present Sharon Levy: The Wood, the first solo Los Angeles exhibition by the artist. For Project Room 1, Levy will create a site-specific installation of large-scale sculptures depicting trees in various stages of life and death. All are silhouettes with a range of articulated branches, jigsaw-cut from pine plywood—a manufactured material returning to its original form. In addition to the trees, Levy will also install a piece entitled Cookie, which appears to be a slice from a giant tree, approximately nine feet in diameter. The Wood is a fairytale forest that triggers mixed emotions of wonder, fear, and isolation.
Levy is interested in the psychological charge of a variety of spaces, the tension between the natural and the man-made, and the dynamics created between people and their environments. For The Wood, she will use construction techniques borrowed from theater props, toys, and “knock-down” furniture to construct trees of flat wooden design that interlock at right angles to the trunk. Existing somewhere between natural object and artificial product, the plywood grain reveals the real tree that the silhouettes imitate. Cookie is formed from two canvases stretched on a frame, covered with foam rubber, and painted to resemble bark. Levy’s trees are beautiful, humorous, awkward, and anthropomorphic, yet also awe-inspiring and quietly monumental.
Sharon Levy is a mixed-media artist. She received her B.A. in Studio Art from Bard College and her M.F.A. in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego. She has participated in many group exhibitions, is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, and was artist-in-residence in 2006 at Lui Velazquez, Tijuana, Mexico. Levy lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
The Santa Monica Museum of Art is grateful to the following foundations and organizations for their support: Anonymous; The Annenberg Foundation; City of Santa Monica Cultural Arts/Organizational Support Grant Program; City of Santa Monica Community Arts Grant Programs; Elliot R. Donnelley Charitable Trust; The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation; The Getty Grant Program; Good Works Foundation; The Audrey and Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation; LLWW Foundation; Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation; Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation; and the Board of Trustees and the Friends and Members of the Santa Monica Museum of Art.