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STEPHANIE BURSESE

Waiting Room is an exhibition that includes a site-specific installation accompanied by two text pieces. The first text piece (session 1) was written before the public opening and second (session 2) was written after the opening reception. The second piece was performed on Sunday, April 14th, 2019 as a public reading inside the gallery space.

(session 1)
7/8 is a very frustrating fraction. There is a lot of writing about the number 7 and how perfect it is. About how many people thought it was the ideal number. But there isn’t as much writing about the number 8. Though, this is also heralded by some as a mystical number, it’s more binding and foggy than 7.

The number 8 looks a lot like the symbol for infinity and it draws some of it’s magic from this proximity. What does it look like to approach infinity, see it up ahead, and pull back?

View/Download (session 2)

This installation is comprised of over 1500 laser cut symbols from reflective acrylic. The artist applied commercial one-way-mirror film by hand to acrylic sheets, making them both refractive and slightly transparent.

Using a digitally, hand drawn infinity symbol as a starting point, the artist created over 20 variations, slowly erasing pieces of the original drawing on the computer, before each batch was lasercut. There is not a single complete symbol in the exhibition.

Hung on two nails, the delicate objects move and sway independently when someone passes by. Light from the symbols spills out from the edges of the gallery and bounces off the floor and ceiling, creating a disorienting visual effect. Being in the room is both meditative and puzzling-prompting the viewer to think about the reflective loop, and how mirrors function both externally and internally.