S A R A H    M A K I      

A R T I S T     S T A T E M E N T 

My work is about revealing beauty in the hidden, subtle, and inauspicious details found around us. I want to call attention to beauty found in the quiet, temporal familiarities of the physical world where there exists a transition between material and nonexistence.

Ultimately, a dynamic is created through the incorporation of opposites, including: accident and control, serious and whimsical, order and chaos, form and formless.

I use translucent materials for each surface because they successfully bridge the gap between the polarities mentioned. All of these materials are castable and can record subtle surface qualities, as well as reveal a balance between material and nonexistence. When light passes through the translucent materials it seemingly dissolves parts of the surface and reveals other areas built up by casting. Subtle layers emerge that exist as dichotomies themselves - microcosm/macrocosm, wet/dry, materiality/immateriality.

These polarities are found throughout the physical world and are what I intend to refer to the viewer. My work is about beauty found in familiarities like the surface of water, ice on a window, a muddy snow bank and cracks on a driveway. Echoing the lessons of Wabi-Sabi, a Japanese aesthetic philosophy celebrating all things impermanent, imperfect, and incomplete, I want to call attention to beauty found in the temporal and overlooked.

My work is successful when it causes the viewer to slow down, look closely, and discover the balance between the pleasure of things and the pleasure of the freedom of things.