relational space

Zeynep Banu Alev, Stephanie Hargrave, Noa Miyeko Piper

PHOTO CREDIT: MARK WOODS

RELATIONAL SPACE

The works of Zeynep Banu Alev, Stephanie Hargrave, and Noa Miyeko Piper present viewers with an exploration of form in space that challenges viewers to go past an isolated perceptual viewpoint and move into a relational space which is partly abstract but very much grounded in nature and natural formations. Such spaces are expansive, indeterminate, and pregnant with potential.  Piper’s paintings often explore liminal spaces between a multiplicity of interacting figures and at other times, directly bring viewers into a vibrant color web that challenges the viewer to step outside their own viewing and allow their experience of viewing itself to be perceived at a granular level.  Hargrave’s encaustic sculpted forms bring viewers into relation with form-filled spaces that are at once familiar–the natural contours of humanoid embodiment or ancestral oceanic anatomies, and at the same time alien, with absence of any recognizable facial features and surprising curves and colors. In such ways, a relational space with The Other opens. Alev’s paintings explore geometric and abstract spatial cartographies hybridizing engineering and geography, punctuated by text and color and explore relational space through a variety of lenses.  The collected artworks engage viewers in a fundamental ‘movement beyond’ self and into the wonderous awe of relationality in shared space.

Sunil K. Aggarwal, MD, PhD (Geography)