Lara Saget’s Sculptures Mine the Ancient, Alchemical, and Divine
Artist Lara Saget explores themes of regeneration and spirituality in her New York solo exhibition.
1Artistic Exploration of Matter
Lara Saget’s debut solo exhibition, titled 'and the world came apart,' opened at Trotter Sholer on November 7. The show features sculptures crafted from granite, copper alloy, and glass. Saget utilizes her Brooklyn studio as a quarry, collecting rare materials like Tuckahoe marble to explore the intersection of destruction and creative regeneration.
2Spiritual and Academic Foundations
The exhibition is deeply influenced by Saget’s recent academic pursuits. Having earned a master’s in divinity from the Center for Religion and Advanced Spiritual Studies, she is now an ordained minister. This spiritual background informs her artistic philosophy, which views the physical world as a unified entity capable of profound alchemical transformation.
3Ancient Techniques and Processes
Saget employs a 6,000-year-old method known as lost-wax casting for her metal works. This manual process involves carving stone, creating wax prints, and constructing mud-brick sweat lodges to melt the wax. She has refined this technique through annual residencies at Art Ichol in India, where she works closely with a dedicated team.
4Mapping Earth’s Ancient History
The exhibition’s wall works utilize a modular, grid-based aesthetic to depict volcanic maps and tectonic plates. Saget incorporated NASA celestial maps to chart these geological features. The spontaneous interaction between heat-trapping granite and molten metal creates a visual effect she describes as spiritual archaeology, connecting the viewer to the earth’s ancient, essential materials.
5Resilience of Endangered Flora
Saget’s glass sculptures focus on the survival of specific trees, including the Joshua tree and the ancient Judean date palm. By using kiln-cast glass, she highlights the life force of species that have overcome extinction or extreme climate shifts. These works serve as a meditation on persistence against all cognitive understanding of survival.
6Legacy and Creative Inheritance
As the daughter of the late actor Bob Saget, Lara grew up surrounded by a commitment to constant creation. She views her father’s artistic approach as similar to jazz, emphasizing a legacy of perpetual invention. This upbringing normalized the artistic process for her, shaping her current dedication to exploring themes of inheritance.
7Conceptualizing Grief and Infinity
Saget applies her artistic philosophy to personal experiences with grief. She suggests that working with materials that seem finite allows them to reveal themselves as infinite. By observing how heat breaks down matter to reveal a singular essence, she finds comfort in the idea that nothing is truly an end, but always becoming.
8Exhibition Context and Impact
The exhibition runs through December 19 at 90 Elizabeth Street in New York City. Curated by Sarah Darro, the show invites viewers to engage with the underlying life force of nature. Through audio narratives and tactile sculptures, Saget encourages a deeper appreciation for the environment and the interconnectedness of all physical matter.
Original article: Vogue — Lara Saget’s Sculptures Mine the Ancient, Alchemical, and Divine