DEANNA SIRLIN

Recent Works (2002),
Saltworks Gallery
Atlanta, GA

Require (2002)

Inward (2002)

Suspended hammock-like over the gallery floor from wall and ceiling, “Inward” cuts a 49-foot swath through the space, spilling color into its environment. “Inward” is the most sculptural of Sirlin’s installations to date in the sense that it invites the viewer to experience it fully in the round, from every angle. From some vantage points, the piece is a linear curve. From others, it loops back over itself; because the piece is transparent, you can see it through itself and discover an infinite array of new images in the overlaps. Because it is suspended, “Inward” also offers the viewer a remarkable opportunity to see the work from beneath. Looked at from below, the work seems to leap across the floor in its rush skyward; looking up through it, the viewer is bathed in the reds and yellows that splash onto the gallery floor.

Thought (2002)

“Thought,” in two strips that form an angle that echoes but does not restate the angle of the walls on which it is installed, creates a dialogue between two- and three-dimensionality. Each part can be looked at frontally as an autonomous composition; when seen as a whole, the work redefines its architectural setting by establishing a dialectic between inside and outside within an interior space. “Thought” delineates an “inside” space in front of the piece into which the viewer can enter and an “outside” space behind the work from which the viewer is excluded. Walking into the angle created by the installation recalls the traditional concept of the perspectival vanishing point that governs the angle of view while the inaccessibility of the space behind the installation creates a strong but unrequitable desire to get behind it and see it from a different angle. The glowing blues, oranges, and yellows projected onto the walls of that inaccessible space only make it more tantalizing.