Upon entering Susan Marie Dopp’s Lacewing exhibit at the Roswell Museum, viewers encounter a series of abstract, organic sculptures bathed in colored light. Most of these enchanting forms are suspended from the ceiling and rotate, while several rise up from the ground. The pieces are created from various materials, most notably wire wrapped in tracing paper and illuminated from within like lamps. As the artist notes, the wrapped wire bears more than a passing resemblance to the wings of a lacewing moth.
In the center of the room are two circular platforms, each with a single sculpture suspended above it. Covering the walls are several dozen more sculptures, separated from the center platforms by a makeshift wooden railing or fence. Upon investigation, there is a delightful variety in the construction of the pieces, held together by a common visual language of repurposed play.
Many utilize the wrapped-in-paper effect, but there are also beautiful pieces solely composed of wire, and others are made from an amalgamation of materials–scavenged and otherwise. They at times resemble lamps, birdcages, mobiles, wasp nests, spaceships, and geometric models, without actually becoming any of these familiar objects.
Adding to the exhibit are directional, color LED lights that point at the sculptures and create dancing shadows across the walls. A soundtrack of funky, meditative music by Agustin Lucho Pozo plays in the background.
The two platforms, fence, and the pieces behind it, combined with the music and lighting, create a fascinating narrative. Are the two pieces on the platforms performing, while the pieces beyond the railing watch and dance along (several literally rotating)? Are they engaged in some kind of fight or debate? Or, given that the pieces on the platforms are not significantly different from those on the wall, is it a queue where everyone gets a turn in the spotlights?
Old Robot, 30″ x 14.5″ x 10.5″
Studio shot courtesy of artist
Nectar, 38″ x 12.5″ x 18.5″
Studio shot courtesy of artist
Carapace, 58″ x 23″ x 16″
Studio shot courtesy of artist
This effect emphasizes the pieces as individual works, while also calling attention to the relationships between them. They become meditations on aging and the fragility of life. The scavenged wires feel like bones, at times in clean geometries, in other instances twisting, and sometimes fraying at the edges. The stretched, glued strips of tracing paper wrapping across wires feel like old skin hanging onto a skeleton or like the show’s namesake, the wings of a moth.
Each individual piece has its own internal logic, and in many instances even its own internal illumination in the form of light shining out through small windows cut into the tracing paper surfaces. While not physically anthropomorphic, the sculptures are spiritually so: each accumulation radiates both a fragility and a joy, urging us to delight in what we are experiencing right now because it will never come in just this way again. The pieces offer an extended experience of time because of the scavenged material’s original function, now transformed, and their imperfect assembled nature. They reflect the beauty of aging and transformation. If they could talk, each would have a life’s story worth listening to.
Flame 34″ x 73″ x 39″
Studio shot courtesy of artist
Citrine, 24″ x 36″ x 21.5″
Studio shot courtesy of artist
Artistically, the joy in these pieces reflects Alexander Calder’s early wire circus (and other) sculptures, but with the conceptual heft of his later mobiles. As Calder said of his later work, “the underlying form in my work has been the system of the universe.” As Dopp writes of the show, “all ‘things’ are swirling masses of molecules, atoms, and electrons filled with energy and light, constantly evolving and interconnected,” and “our Earth is spinning… while rotating around the Sun… and the Sun is rotating… and so on.” One could easily imagine Dopp’s pieces being birthed from an enormous Janet Echelman net-installation composed of ethereal pieces of fiber hovering above us.
Lacewing is a fanciful, fun exhibit that doesn’t shy away from the big questions. As we linger and contemplate Dopp’s sculptures, we become increasingly aware that every moment of existence contains multitudes–life and death, youth and maturity, light and shadow, debris and beauty, pain and joy–but we might as well have a damn good time while we’re at it.
Lacewing is on view at the Roswell Museum through July 7, 2024.
Enjoy videos of the artist’s work in motion at her website.
Installation shots taken by author; in-studio detail shots courtesy of the artist.
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