Unseen Scenery

About

A.I.R. Gallery is pleased to announce Unseen Scenery, a site-specific installation by New York artist Erica Stoller, a work that offers first-row view of a overlooked fragment of the landscape.

Stoller’s depictions do not include seascapes or sunsets, nor references to landforms, buildings or people. Unseen Scenery instead refers to the omnipresent wires and cables that run from pole to pole, in cities, towns, along country roadways, and under all of the above.

Repairs to the low voltage phone wires often involve tangles and splices which Stoller notices, builds on and enjoys. Her linear, hanging pieces are made of ordinary industrial materials: plumbing tubes, foam insulation, metal bead chain, cables and more. The attachments and connections, with knots, ties, and hardware, are all visible parts of the work. According to Mark Lamster, Architecture Critic at Dallas Morning News, “Stoller takes the materials of infrastructure and remakes and reframes them into colorful works of spatial and visual pleasure. Her sculpture suggests an eye trained to see the world with attention to each visible element and builds on the infrastructure toward a meaningful sculptural abstraction.”

Stoller’s pieces occupy and define space as sculpture, the colorful linear elements recall calligraphy and mapmaking. Stemming from an interest she has sustained through her career, in her work materials are transformed but always with a respect for the underlying presence: canvas, paper, cardboard and, now, unexpected plastic and metal materials. Thus, the unseen infrastructure of our lives becomes visible through its materialization.  

Erica Stoller has been affiliated with A.I.R. for five years, and this is her second solo exhibition at the Gallery. Her work as an artist is complemented by her connection to the architecture and design fields. She is the director of Esto, the photo agency representing architectural photographers and managing an archive of images of modern and contemporary architecture.