Enter the talented Ms Rebecca Holland, who has been around for a few years making incredible sculptures using beet sugar and electric pigments. (We know the magical qualities of candy very well - it starts as a crystal, can be heated, manipulated by hand, cast, or grown into bigger crystals! Amazing!) She casts the sweet stuff in panes, blocks, strips, pours it, and crushes it, but using the sweet medium to inspire the viewer to think about space in a new way.
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| Green Planks 2007 |
One of our favorite installations was in 2007 at the Barry Whistler Gallery in Dallas, Texas. Included in the installation were bright yellow cast sugar cement blocks sealed in polyurethane, 78 inch Green Planks in a variety of citron hues leaning perilously against the gallery wall, and a luminescent line that brings to mind the work of Dan Flavin. Two strips of brightly colored candy bend around a corner, and when seen from afar the lines appear to be one continuous line, visually connecting the two spaces.
Upon first glance the panes seem to have the same properties as glass, but upon realizing their crystal make up, they seem so much more fragile and treacherous. The pink and chartreuse hues tease the viewer, making the panes seem more playful than fragile. It's the color that makes these panes so magical - they seem to emit light, glowing in the gallery space.
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| Pink Sheets 2007 |
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| Barry Whistler Gallery 2007 |
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| Sugar Blocks 2007 |
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| Hot Candy Lines 2007 |
In another one of our favorites, Glaze (2003), Ms Holland covered a floor of the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, with Green Candy - letting the candy slowly melt into a drain in the corner of the room. Additionally, she has done installations using crushed candy, defining a strict boundary with the luminescent crystalline dust.
I think it is important to make our environment more visible and bring up the question of how much of our physical world we really see. Nowadays we are numbed by noise, media, and virtual space, creating a situation in which we are less and less able to simply observe and discover our immediate surroundings.
via Spread Santa Fe
We can't seem to find a website for Ms Holland, and would love to see what projects she's coming up with next. Perhaps a house made of those sugary cinder blocks? After all, no shelter is permanent...
