As if melting or creasing, Alyson Shotz’s (New York) sculptures manipulate their own physicality to explore the phenomenological experience of space, light, and gravity. Using materials like plastic, glass, steel, and beads, her works interact with light and shadows, altering the viewer’s perception of both the sculpture and its environment. Her minimalist structures become anthropomorphic, with the forms influencing the space and its inhabitants’ experience. 

Alyson Shotz received a BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence (1987), and an MFA from the University of Washington, Seattle (1991). Prior to becoming an art student, Shotz briefly studied geology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, focusing on the effects and role of water on Earth—an interest that continues to influence her work. A painter early on, Shotz began in the late 1990s to integrate sculpture into her practice, which explores an interest in nature and the identity of space. In both 1999 and 2010, Shotz was awarded a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant; in 2004, she was the recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in painting. Her sculptures have been installed in solo presentations at a range of international institutions: Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Wisconsin (2006); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (2008, 2009); Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (2010); Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2010); Derek Eller Gallery, New York (2011), and the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (2012). Her work has been shown in multiple group exhibitions, including The Shapes of Space, Guggenheim Museum, New York (2007), and those at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams (2002); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2008); and Storm King Arts Center, Mountainville, New York (2010). Shotz lives and works in Brooklyn.