Night Which Contains the Sea
Special presentation at Van Doren Waxter, New York

hand-crafted glass pieces, black paper garden, hand-cut flashspun nonwoven HDPE, wires, metal suspension frame
May 11 - August 25, 2017

​

Jennifer Wen Ma creates a new site-specific installation, Night Which Contains the Sea, for the foyer at Van Doren Waxter Gallery, opening May 11, 2017, coinciding with a solo exhibition Eight Views of Paradise Interrupted at Sandra Gering Inc.

On one side, a form comprised of a voluminous and chaotic mass of cut black paper is suspended from the top of the recess. Cascading down from the mass are dark colored glass pieces in shapes reminiscent of teardrops, embryos, cancer cells, and other organic forms. Lowest hanging and farthest from the paper form are sperm-shaped glass.

In the mirroring niche, a single large clear glass sculpture hangs. The bulbous form is reminiscent of the breasts and buttocks of a voluptuous woman, inspired by the Venus of Willendorf. Rising up from the bottom of the niche to meet and cradle the glass form is a nest of cut paper, formed from the cut-away parts of the paper from the first niche.

This installation in two parts posits a world of duality represented in Yin and Yang, fullness and emptiness, light and dark, positive and negative space, motion and stillness. It is a freeze frame of energies in flux and establishing balance, reflected in these forms still in the process of becoming.