Applied Matter
Robischon Gallery, July-September 2021
Terry Maker’s latest drawing and mixed media series, entitled “Field Lines,” invokes both the vastness of the celestial and a kind of cross-cultural or tribal sense of visual form. Maker’s dynamic explorations into the circular vacillate between the commonplace and the cosmic, utilizing materials ranging from resin inlays to shredded scientific documents. Composed of fragmented images of deep space, the pigmented paper backgrounds of each mixed media work on view, symbolize both Earth and Heaven, referencing, as the artist states, “the tension of the magnetic pull that exists and the attraction / repulsion of our current cultural climate.” Whether reflecting for the artist the oppositional rhythms of the contemporary world, or as a glimpse of Maker’s grand metaphor of the circularity and timelessness of humankind’s inherent pursuit of the infinite, the artist commits to the symbol of the circle as it radiates and stands at the core of her work.