Alyson Shotz: Experiment in Gravity

Alyson Shotz lives and works in New York and is known for large scale sculptures and installations. Shotz uses synthetic material -- optical lenses, piano strings, beads, wire, monofilament, tractor trailer skin -- and implements ideas of physical forces (weight, gravity, topography, light, and space) to investigate perception, boundaries, and fleeting phenomena.

Her works are created through process-driven methods such as accumulation and structure-building with inspiration from physics, optical effects, mathematics, and atmospheric effects. Shotz creates sculptures that play with light, shifting perspectives, weightlessness, fluidity, and human sensations that can sometimes blur the line between organic and human-made.

Experiment in Gravity is a metal quilt composed of thousands of tiny aluminum hand woven, punched metal parts. The material is made to explore the structure of space itself experienced through the force of gravity. The shape is based on an animation of the same material dropped through space, responding to gravity, and stopped in time.

Experiment in Gravity is installed adjacent to Shotz’s work A Moment in Time, complementing one another with their ethereal and luminescent qualities.

Shotz’s work is included in numerous public collections, such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Guggenheim Bilbao; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; San Jose Museum of Art; and Yale University Art Gallery, Princeton, New Jersey, among others.

Alyson Shotz: Experiment in Gravity is on view in the City of Roanoke Atrium June 30, 2023-July 20, 2025.