Born 1964, Glendale, AZ
Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY
“I would like my sculpture to be constantly changing, like the weather. When an object has an easily understandable structure or surface, one can know it too quickly… Light, time of day and angle of view all contribute to the change the sculptures can encompass.” -- Alyson Shotz
Temporal Shift, a site-responsive sculpture by New York-based artist Alyson Shotz, is a refined meditation on time and space. The sculpture interacts with natural light and its surroundings to probe our perceptions of space and time. Its elliptical form alludes to the Earth’s revolution around the sun over the course of a year. Its mirrored surface of Temporal Shift reflects light and casts shadows to mark different times of day and seasons similar to a sun dial.
Trained as a painter, Shotz first ventured into sculpture in the early 1990s, where she began examining space and how it exists around us. At the core of her inquiry was the question: “does [space] stop at the edge of our bodies or are we made of space – do we encompass space?” While created years later, Temporal Shift continues Shotz’s line of questioning. Its reflective qualities absorb and camouflage the work into deCordova's lush landscape, while also refracting and interjecting light into the nearby area – blurring definitions on where the sculpture begins or ends. Additionally, its elliptical, continuous shape alludes to infinity and boundlessness, and its large size and cosmic reference bring attention to our scale and place in the universe.
The sculpture was originally conceived as part of an interdisciplinary study on time at Grace Farms Foundation in New Canaan, Connecticut. Shotz often approaches her works conceptually, starting with a proposed hypothetical situation with an unknown outcome. She engages with materials like mirrors, glass, and steel to animate her work’s surroundings and evoke movement in a seemingly static object. Each viewer’s interaction with Temporal Shift as well as the time of its viewing further determine how the work is uniquely experienced and sensed.
Alyson Shotz was born in Glendale, Arizona (1964) and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She received a BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence (1987), and an MFA from the University of Washington, Seattle (1991). Her work has been featured in exhibitions such as “The Line of Wit” (2022) at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; “Pattern: Follow the Rules” (2013–2014) at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, Lansing; “Light and Landscape” (2012) at Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY; “The More Things Change” (2010–2011) at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; “Contemplating the Void” (2010) at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, among others. Shotz’s work is included in numerous collections including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR. Shotz is the recipient of awards and acknowledgments including a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 1999 and 2010; a Saint-Gaudens Memorial Fellowship in 2007; and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in 2004.