Marjorie Kaye: Shape Shifter

A quote attributed to Gerard Piel, the publisher who revived Scientific American magazine in the middle of the last century, is a perfect springboard for my impression and, I hope, our discus- sion of Marjorie Kaye’s upcoming exhibition at East Boston’s Atlantic Works Gallery. Piel said, “Energy commutes into matter as naturally as matter commutes into energy.”

Indeed it does, and nowhere, for me, was this omnipresent transmutation more in evidence than when I sat sipping tea, surrounded by Kaye’s sculptures, just downstairs from her studio.

Three of the eleven or so sculptures slated for her March exhibition at Atlantic Works were, for me, particularly eloquent of this vibrancy. And why? Again, for me, they never seemed to settle down.

Take “Hawaii.” A seemingly simple, flat wall sculpture of a couple of dozen amoeba-like shapes, or perhaps islands seen from the air, Hawaii’s irregular borders crowd against one another, sometimes touching, sometimes preserving, a hair’s breadth of separation between their wandering bound- aries and other shapes.

To read more, pick up a copy of our latest issue! Click here to find a pick-up location near you or Subscribe Here.