Drawing is a useful tool for generating new work, but drawing has limits when the subject of the work is an elusive concept. I enjoy drawing and painting representational subjects, but feel challenged to create works that embody a sense of being alive. Years of chasing this idea has taken me through iterations of art-making that have proceeded as a series of experiments with media and method.

Making a three dimensional object from a drawn object can require a lot of technical problem-solving. My art practice revolves around creating interesting problems to solve. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and in my mind I can see the path for overcoming an obstacle that had been blocking progress or a better method to get a result I was seeking. All the maquettes and samples and materials research didn’t get me the result that I was looking for, yet here it was, laid out in my head clearly.

When I started on this path, I believed that abstract ideas called for abstract work, and many of my earlier pieces were abstract, but there seemed to be a disconnect between the concepts they embodied and what the pieces were communicating. From the beginning, simplified figures kept inserting themselves into pieces and eventually I embraced them as a conduit to concept, ghosts haunting the studio, or more likely deep history asserting itself from my Catholic upbringing and training as a theatrical designer.

The piece ‘Firmament’, came out of an intention to literally ground a figure while acknowledging the continuity of life beyond the short span of a human. It emerged as the outline of a body, levitating, with roots reaching downward and butterflies hovering above. The body itself is fractured, but dense with renewal and possibility as a reflecting pool gifting new perspective. I made the piece several years ago but the message seems more timely than ever.

See more of my work at https://CarolynEnzHack.com
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Carolyn Enz Hack is one of 36 artists from 10 states who’s work is included in Adrift, a national juried exhibition which is on view at Main Street Arts through June 11, 2021.