a statement

Six years ago I found myself returning full cycle to sculpture.

There are so many objects in the world. Why add more?

I have come to know I am a maker and a builder.

I work from a place of curiosity, hope, and contemplation.

To engage in artmaking allows me an interface with the fullness of living on this planet now. 

Through this process, I have access to a kind of cellular memory. My work is informed by a deep sense of place and a desire to return home. 

Using recycled cardboard, I want to create an integral relationship between form and color. Depending on my method of building, I may leave the resultant striations to speak for themselves.

Indigenous dwellings hold a deep fascination. They speak of our symbiotic engagement with our surroundings. The acknowledgement of our abiding kinship and interdependence with the natural world is crucial.  

I am moved by classical Asian sculpture-the illusionary capture of energy in the posture and grace of its formal ritual dance. The best of these sculptures succeed in animating the stone body with a palpable beauty, a convincing inner aliveness.

Some of the questions I ask myself: 

How to express/contain energy in an apparently static thing?  

How to grow, organize, unfold, form? What is the dance of form and space? 

How to evoke, re-call, our primary relationships.

How to stop the world. Begin, again. 

BIO

Lindsay Iliff received her BFA in sculpture from Boston University's School of Fine Arts in 1976.

While living in NYC in the late seventies and early eighties, she attended classes at the Feminist Art Institute and there served as prop assistant to Carolee Shneemann in her performance, Swing. During this time, Iliff was deeply impressed by the performances of Merce Cunningham Dance Company and Laurie Anderson.

In 1996, Iliff moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where, in 2001, she returned to studio practice. Since 2016, sculpture has absorbed her focus, using cardboard as her medium. Cardboard caught her attention with its close-at-hand availability, its strength, fragility and impermanence. As a material cardboard harkens back to its source as tree.

For many years working alone in her studio was enough. It provided a kind of visual diary, a source of connection and personal expression. Beginning in 2015, the forms that were emerging asked to be seen. The artist was ushered into a new visibility to honor the work.

In 2015, Lindsay's paintings were included in a group show at Highlands University, Las Vegas, New Mexico. Also in 2015, two digital prints were part of the New Mexico Art League's exhibition, Biologique, in Albuquerque. Iliff's sculptures were included, in 2018, in group exhibitions at City of Mud and Keep Contemporary galleries in Santa Fe.