ABOUT THE ARTIST
Originally from Chicago, Carrie Seid maintains a full time fine and public art practice out of her studio in Tucson, Arizona. Her works are made primarily of metal, wood, and silk, and incorporate illumination and pattern investigation to conjure various states of being. She has exhibited widely across the United States and internationally.
Seid received her B.F.A. from The Rhode Island School of Design in 1984, then went on to receive her M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art, where she was a Merit Scholar. She has taught at numerous universities in the U.S., including the School of The Art Institute of Chicago. Winner of the Purchase Award in 2003, her work is part of the permanent collection of The Tucson Museum of Art. In February 2006, her work was featured on“Arizona Illustrated,” hosted by Sooyeon Lee of KUAT television. Her public commissions in the Tucson area include the reception area of the Udall Senior Center, five distinct projects at the Northwest Medical Center in Oro Valley, and an in-ground glass sculpture in the courtyard of the Flowing Wells Community Center in Tucson. Seid is currently working on a terrazzo floor design for the Phoenix Arts Commission.
Carrie Seid is represented by Lora Schlesinger Gallery in Santa Monica, California, and Conrad Wilde Gallery in Tucson, Arizona. She is currently a Professor of Practice at the University of Arizona, where she teaches Fiber and Combined Media.
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
In my work I attempt to convey the anatomy of human emotions and sensations through form, structure, and the glow of saturated color.
The human experience of being simultaneously tenacious and vulnerable is referred to through the use of silk, a material which is delicate yet possesses a tensile strength greater than steel. Tension is built, both physically and metaphorically, as two elements quite opposed in character meet to form the surfaces and contours of the work. By combining these translucent and reflective materials, I am able to solidify and objectify ephemeral qualities of light.
The tension between geometric and biomorphic forms in my work allows me to explore the tension between order and chaos, constancy and change.
The pieces are constructed using a hardwood base, cut and formed sheet metals (copper, brass and aluminum), and silk. The metal forms an understructure which supports a stretched layer of silk. Modulated color (in the form of under-painting or dyed silk) is sometimes used to enhance depth, structure and dimension. The additional step of oiling the fabric“skin” creates various degrees of translucence, allowing the outer layer to be visually penetrable - a watercolor rendered in three dimensions.
“The physical description reduces their ephemeral qualities unjustly, failing to re-create the diaphanous veils of melting color, fusing from one space to the next. A simultaneity of resilience and vulnerability is created through the metal and membranes, like scars emerging from the interior of a cloud… Painting and sculpture are too categorically limited for the emotional states of being that Seid so elegantly conjures up. Smoke and shadow, dissipation and loss, energy and anatomy- these physical references bring us closer to the ineffable life forces at the core of these mysterious assemblages.”
—Gerry Craig, Sculpture Magazine July/August 2000