Sarah Sze | The Anchor Newspaper

Katelyn Hurd, Art for the Average Joe
February 13, 2012
Filed under Arts and Entertainment

Last semester I was abducted from my comfort zone of two-dimensional design and drawing and thrust into a three-dimensional art exploration. The hours and hours I spent trying to think three-dimensionally were frustrating, and usually ended in disaster. I found myself dreading critique day when I had to show everyone the monstrosity I was trying to make.

The class was required for all art majors, despite the fact that I am focused on graphic design. Though I may have failed to be remotely close to making something work in a 3D structural way, I did adapt with one thing from the course- a whole new appreciation for this style of artwork. Along with it came a new favorite artist, Sarah Sze.
3D art is a lot harder to make than one would think, although it did seem to come easily for others. As a graphic design major, I missed clinging to a computer and a sketch book; without either I couldn?t fathom making art. Air had become the sketchpad, but I was struggling with construction. I found Sarah Sze as an inspiration.
Her 3D art is made out of simple, ordinary objects, juggling the idea of tension and warping the space in an entire room to shape the viewer into a particular focal point. Some of her pieces look like your grandmother?s sewing kit and your dad?s garage got into a fist fight, creating a mess of every-day objects. Her artwork has a lot of lively movement throughout it, playing off the tension of how loose or tight something is giving the viewers a different feel depending on what they are looking at. It is truly an amazing site.

At a first glance, one may just see a room full of ordinary junk thrown together, but it is hard to look away. The objects are simply captivating- following one string for example, makes the viewer feel an almost dizzying effect.

Sze also plays with manipulating different spaces such as something as interesting as an alley or a field to something as simple as a big empty room. The world is her canvas- but random objects are her paints.

The installations she creates are made out of everyday materials, but not in the way of presenting the average object in an abnormal way, in a way of keeping its normal form to create the installation. In many of her pieces you can still tell the parts are ladders, or tea bags, or string, but they are repeated and placed in ways that are comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. Recognizing the average object is comforting, but using it as a design element is unpredictable and interesting.

Sze was born in Boston, and graduated with her Masters in Fine arts from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Since the late 1990s, her work has been focused all over the world, from Germany to Japan. She currently teaches at Columbia University. Her latest work uses metallic and wooden materials and places them in a leafy environment as a contrast.

Sze became one of the many artists who could think in a 3D way that I came to truly appreciate. It made the agonizing experience of struggling in the class feel worth the tears, cuts and bruises I endured to appreciate and truly admire artist like Sze?s ability to create.

Source: http://www.theanchoronline.org/ae/2012/02/13/sarah-sze/

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