Natalie Gerber: load

As an artist and a maker, Natalie Gerber is interested in metamorphosis, flux, and endless cycles of becoming, learning, and unlearning. In this new, site-specific installation, Gerber brings together ceramic and textile to consider the transformative potential of weight, gravity, and duration.
load begins with a constellation of ceramic forms that alternately evoke rocks, eggs, or celestial bodies. The forms are slip-cast, a process wherein liquid clay is poured into a mold, forming a skin-like surface which is revealed when the mold is released. Close inspection of the ceramics reveal the gradations within Gerber’s process, particularly the slow deterioration of the slip-cast molds. Suspended above the ceramic forms is a sculptural silk lattice that cascades down the space akin to a net, veil, or shroud. To create the lattice, Gerber laser-cuts individual modules of fused silk with a pattern that allows the two-dimensional fabric to expand into three-dimensions when pinned together and draped. In turn, the silk lattice will evolve slowly across the duration of the installation, gradually expanding like a lung or a ribcage.
While the body is not represented directly, it imbues Gerber’s work, appearing in the dimpled flesh of the ceramics, and the corporeal drape and fascia-like web of the silk lattice. Like the fallible, malleable human body, her work is never fixed or static either. Rather, it is continuously shaped and re-shaped by the unrelenting forces of gravity and time.