ERICA STOLLER
The material itself is both the point of origin and the subject matter of my sculpture. Visual and tactile investigation considers shape and texture. It’s about the stuff it’s made of. For the 2024 project I am concentrating on corrugated cardboard. In the past, materials have included plastic plumbing tubes, foam insulation, rope, bead chain, swimming noodles, and more.
The current focus is rescued and recycled cardboard, which comments on the discarded, but now useful, material. Earlier cardboard projects were bookish, folded pieces that could be “read” in numerous directions. Moving on, these layered configurations relate to geological strata, indicating the physicality of earth movement, rocks, minerals, and water. With recycled materials, this is also a new way of looking at old landforms—through the lens of trash.
Collecting and working with cardboard started after a big studio clean-up and the move to a smaller workspace. Boxes were everywhere and told many stories. The cardboard could be first time ‘round or recycled. Printed on the container, one finds information about the contents and the origin of the container itself. One can see geography, history, commerce, transportation, even seasonal variations. The material is sturdy and adaptable, and the price is right. Though committed to working with second-hand cardboard, I must admit to purchasing rolls of new, corrugated from time to time for a bendable, loopy dynamic.
First finding and selecting, then slicing, bending, rolling, and gluing, the construction language is of thickness, strength, and endurance. Most of these pieces have been in low relief, wall-mounted. The layered, variable configurations create conceptual geological strata, referring to layered outcroppings and road cuts. For the future, the material seems to be moving off the wall as free-standing structures. Let’s see what happens.
www.ericastoller.com
CV
Recent Press: Bat-Ami Rivlin, “Erica Stoller: Find and Form,” ART SPIEL, November 13, 2024, https://artspiel.org/erica-stoller-find-and-form/.
Past Solo Exhibitions:
Outcropping, 2024 Item # 25-033, 2022 Unseen Scenery, 2018 Gravity Feed, 2015
Past Group Exhibitions: please come flying, 2022 23°47', 2°27', 2°51', 2021. SYMPOIESIS, 2020 (s)(o)(f)(t) (w)(i)(n)(d)(o)(w)(s), 2020 Eleven x Seventeen, 2019 NADA House, 2019
Women On The Line, 2017
Who Cares?, 2017
New Art In An Old House, 2016
Wish You Were Here, 2016
Razzle Dazzle, 2016
A.I.R. ReFreshed, 2015
Unframed, 2015
If These Walls... II, 2015
Traverse, 2014
Pumping Up The Volume At A.I.R., 2014
Wet Paint, 2014
If These Walls..., 2014