Public Secrets, a new exhibition of works by Ellen K. Levy, explores the complex relationships between hidden knowledge and public anxieties. The artist builds a dialogue between the handmade and the technological, drawing inspiration from post-industrial inventions that involve grand schemes to generate unseen forces of energy or to shape living matter. Levy initially selects images and text of patented inventions that highlight the convergence of economic and political interests. She alters these minimal black-and-white diagrams through re-drafting and computer programs, creating a new digital version. Then she cuts and recomposes the printed image, engaging the materials and underlying wood support as significant visual components. Levy paints new images over the surface, taking cues from the inventors’ descriptions and titles. In so doing, each public document becomes a unique work of art.