Carol Prusa creates symbolically charged work responding to liminal locations, using graphite pours and silverpoint drawing in a dance between the known and unknown to create erotically charged portals to new possibilities. Unknowing (between day and night) articulates emergent forms, offering insight into the mystery of our existence while embracing the magnitude of the universe with the lawlessness of imagination to distill the sacred.

ARTIST STATEMENT:
I seek to communicate what cannot be seen but felt, the vibrations that are part of us all, including echoes from billions of years ago. Drawn to the unknown, I studied chemistry, titrating answers in the lab. I became an artist to work outside limits and established methods. Like scientists, I seek new ways to explain our place and manifest the most complete understanding of our world. Specifically, digesting contemporary theories in physics, seeking liminal spaces (like eclipses) and riding my bike at night, is resulting in work that creates scotopic worlds with erotically charged geometries. Known for large scale silverpoint drawings incorporating sculptural forms and new technologies, I yearn to realize the strange beauty that takes into account chaotic interactions central to the evolution of the universe and awe that we are even possible. I seek to give form to thin spaces that evoke the dark matter that both surrounds and tethers us together. As Mary Oliver beautifully wrote in Upstream, “Its (arts) concern is the edge, and the making of a form out of the formlessness that is beyond the edge.” Recent work consists of fiberglass forms, acrylic circles, acrylic hemispheres and spheres ranging from bowl-sized to five feet in diameter, articulated with silverpoint drawing and ground graphite washes heightened with white, often punctuated by patterns of light (from fiber topics, internal programmed lights, video or reflections on aluminum leaf). As well, recent square panels explore illusion and deeper space, focusing on quality of light and shimmer. Bernice Steinbaum writes, “Her domes evoke ideas of origin, mysticism and sacredness. The effect of examining the beautiful intricacy and interconnectedness of Prusa’s forms is that we become aware of the impact we leave on our own globe.”