Collective Chemistry: Penny Sculpture

I gravitate toward gold, copper, and silver foils because of their reflectivity. I love anticipating how light will reflect off of the foil on a finished piece, allowing one to see something new each time they approach the same artwork. Metal foils are timeless and substantive; they have been around for centuries. Their neutral palette allows my focus to stay on composition, texture, and light rather than color. The innovative technique I developed to apply metal foil to 2-dimensional surfaces is derived from a printing process and is something I’ve refined over many years to create large-scale, textural, wall-mounted pieces. My artwork is made in numerous stages across multiple months. With a general composition in mind, I produce something, then react to the first effort by altering the materials or rethinking the composition. I get into a state of flow where the medium is giving me directions for where the next stroke should go, like an intuitive logic for what elements need to be happening. The process is iterative; a compositional puzzle. As a dyslexic, written communication falls short of an adequate form of expression. It has a finality and definitive quality that is constraining. Because of this belief, my work aims to illuminate the power of non-representational communication. I'm continuously intrigued by the ways that texture, shape, and movement can be used to communicate emotion and feeling just as efficiently as concrete objects and words. The reflectivity of my medium allows the surroundings, including the viewer, to be reflected back into the piece and become part of the work. I use this as a metaphor to show the power the viewer brings to a piece of art and how their reaction becomes part of the artwork during the time they are experiencing it. Biography New York City-based gilder M. Clark creates metallic artwork by sculpting gold, copper, and silver foil. Her compositions explore how reflectivity, texture, and shape can suggest the illusion of depth and movement to create visual conversations about emotion. The reflectivity of her materials allows her to investigate the relationship between artwork and audience. Her pieces change depending on both the positions of the light source and the viewer, creating a dynamic, mutable experience. Clark earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in graphic design from Brigham Young University and worked as an art director for leading brands before becoming a full-time artist.