The Abrons Arts Center is proud to present Variations on Notes, a solo show by Mary Valverde of drawings and room-sized installations from September 30 – November 5, 2010. Valverde’s work on the floors and walls of the gallery grows out of patterns inspired by ancient spaces, mandalas, and formulas of measure in music and architecture.

In this exhibition Valverde references such form-generating patterns as Metatron’s Cube, The Flower of Life, and The Vesica Piscis. These patterns and shapes are part of a lexicon of universal forms known as sacred geometry. They are most notable for their harmonious balance of proportions, repeated overlapping circles, grids and spiraling curves often found in nature. Sacred geometry is also considered foundational to the understanding and construction of temples, mosques, megaliths, monuments, and churches.

Using these highly energized shapes as template for her installations, she essentially tampers with our understanding of these forms by not allowing us to just look at them graphically in 2-dimensions. Instead the viewer finds themselves physically placed inside these shapes which are scaled to the geometry of the entire gallery space. In addition, the articulation of these patterns into 3-dimensions is continuously morphed and altered via the artist’s lively list of materials which include: chalk, string, aluminum tape, washers, pennies, vinyl records, and colored fabrics. The material and spatial transformations allow these sacred patterns the freedom to mutate, to break the rules of their ordered repetition, and use the distinct characteristics of the room to form their own mysterious cosmology.

Variations on Notes is organized by Jonathan Durham.