Lin Emery has been creating kinetic sculpture including “aquamobiles” and “magnetmobiles” since the 1960s. The concept was the product of a brief experience while washing dishes in which “a spoon was balanced on the edge of a cup, and the water was moving in it.” The artist states that this led her to create small experiments with water and to study the effect the substance has on the movement of objects. This epiphany led to research on the history of fountains and machines powered by water, as well as experiments using magnets and wind as sources of movement. The abstracted, metallic forms of Emery’s sculpture “Capriole,” located in the Seward Johnson Center for the Arts, are based on natural, organic forms and sway gently in the passing air currents with slight, graceful, and rhythmic movements. The reflective quality of the materials used, draws in the environment in which the sculpture is situated, as well as projecting it outwardly. The grouping of sculptural elements is reminiscent of leaves floating in a fall breeze or a flock of birds flying overhead. About her work, Emery states: “I choose my forms from the symmetries found in nature; I polish their surfaces to mirror the world around them and I borrow natural forces (wind, water, magnets) to set them in motion. The rhythms are influenced by infinite variables: the points of balance, the normal frequency of each element, the interruption of the counterpoise. I design and adjust to achieve a pantomime that evokes the special movement I have in mind. Then the sculpture takes over, and invents an added dance of its own.” Lin Emery has received numerous public art commissions including kinetic sculptures for the Delaware Museum, Hofstra University in New York and Loyola University of the South. Her work can also be seen in public collections of Museums and Arts Centers such as the National Collection of America Art, Washington, D.C., The National Academy of Design in New York, New York, and the New Orleans Museum of Art. In 1997, Emery was awarded the Grand Prize for Public Sculpture for her work Dance of the Tree located in Osaka, Japan. Lin Emery currently resides in New Orleans, Louisiana. Works by Lin Emery currently on view in the Seward Johnson Center for the Arts: Lin Emery
Capriole,1994
fabricated aluminum
276" x 132" x 96"
Courtesy of the Sculpture Foundation, Inc., Gift of Financial Guaranty Insurance Company | | |
