CURATOR: fantastic creatures and huge paper snowflakes

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CURATOR: fantastic creatures and huge paper snowflakes

POSTED: Friday, March 30, 2012, 4:10 PM

Filed Under: Arts Visual Art

Michelle Muzyka’s “Efflorescence” at Slingluff

With exhibitions like Michelle Muzyka’s cut-paper sculptures adorning Slingluff Gallery's walls (and ceiling, and floor, and much of the space in between), it’s no wonder it's gained such a reputation as a sweetheart of the Philly art world. “Efflorescence” is inspired by the growth trends and patterns of molds, fungi and other decomposers; the exhibit “represents an artificial species composed of manually and digitally cut white paper colonizing a vacant interior space. The entity overtakes and germinates from the manufacture objects.”

While the installation is aesthetically attractive — it’s a bit like walking amid giant, detailed, sophisticated paper snowflakes — what makes it even more pleasing to experience is the depth of thought so apparent in the creative outcome. Muzyka’s use of digital and mechanical technology to attain the necessary precision for this installation to be successful (which it so is) adds another nice layer to the ideas of decomposition, generation and regeneration. The mechanism of production essentially becomes an uncontrollable series of fractals, just like the patterns created by the natural species that inspire the work to begin with.

Through April, free, Slingluff Gallery, 11 W. Girard Ave., 215-307-1550, slingluffgallery.com

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