Stacey Levi: The Natural Processes of Art

Courtesy of State College Magazine

By combining a masters in Art and a minor in forestry, Stacey Levy makes sculpture that produces a visual representation of the processes of nature.

She is particularly interested in those processes so subtle or small that they are invisible or almost invisible to the naked eye. According to Levy's artist's statement, these include "the invisible aspects of microorganisms and their complicated relationships of eating and being eaten, the spiraling hydrological patterns of a stream, the mosaic of growth in a vacant lot, the prevailing winds and their effects on vegetation, the flow of water through a living system."

 Levy's works are often site specific and large in nature. They work with the environment to help it tell it's own story.

"I wanted to make work that changed with the situation,"Levy says, "like if the wind blew, it responded, or if flooded it showed the flooding. Or, it would show what was at work in the soil, or the water, that you couldn’t see. So it was about showing what was invisible, but in a very active way."

For instance, Levy's Tide Flowers move with the water of the Hudson River to show the tide coming in and out as the day progresses. There are twenty-five large vinyl flowers are attached "in a field-like formation on selected pilings" at the end of Piers 25 and 26 on the river. 

As you can see in the photograph on the left, the petals "bloom" at high tide and then close as the tide goes out again. I think this might be a mock up photo because in the video below the flowers are bright orange and pink, not blue.

I love how the petals bob up and down with the movement of the water. I'm from California and so I've been to quite a few piers in my time. It's strange that I don't really remember noticing how much the water moves up and down against the pilings. But these bright petals definitely highlight that movement. I think its great.

"Often people think that nature ends where the city begins. But natural processes are always occurring in the city. I like to explore the idea of nature in the city and make it visible to people. I look for sites which give me the opportunity to bring the patterns and processes of the natural world into the built environment,"says Levy.

She goes on to state that the Hudson River's "tidal activity connects us to the ocean, to the moon and to a daily schedule that is nature’s own." I love that too! It's so true. There is nature everywhere, even in the city, it's just not as easy to see.  And I do feel that we need to try and remember the fact that we are apart of nature and are connected to it, even if it isn't readily accessible.



 Here are some other works of hers, not all of them are site works. Some are large installation pieces in museums like Levy's Blue Lake.

It's an interesting piece because you are allowed to walk among the discs and as you can see in the picture on the right, even lay down and look up at the blue vinyl discs.

Here's another piece that I thought was particularly interesting, though kinda gross.

It's MOLD.

The title is Mold Garden and they are "Enlarged images of common molds (bread mold and fruit mold) were sandblasted onto glass, Each of the carved out areas in the glass became like tiny petri dishes which were filled with growth medium, and inoculated with mold spores. During the show the mold grew on the glass, creating a double portrait of the fungus, both life sized and hugely magnified."

How gross but how cool!! The patterns are beautiful, something you wouldn't think about except that the mold has been magnified to the point where you can see the growth patterns. It's fascinating to think that something that we consider to be a bad thing is really quite stunning.