Artist Statement

Inhale

Breath – the wellspring of all movement. Rooted in my modern dance training, I translate breath into painted metal screen sculptures that hold air the way a body holds an inhale or exhale, poised at the threshold of motion. Though abstract, the work embodies reaching, descending, twisting, and folding – visceral gestures that feel responsive and alive. Each piece bridges the dynamics of a body moving through space and an object that holds it still.

I use the screen as both a transparent boundary and a portal – each layer a participant in a dynamic exchange of color and light. As the viewer moves, colors blend, moirés activate and hidden passageways reveal inner forms. The viewer’s position becomes part of the work. Like a dance, these sculptures are not fixed objects to be read, but diaphanous forms – to be approached, looked within, and discovered.

Underlying my work is a deeper conviction: that true understanding is never immediate. The layered transparency of the screen reveals meaning gradually – through multiple angles, accumulated perspectives, and the willingness to look beyond the first surface into what lies beneath. It’s in these infinite gradations between layers of complexity, contradiction, and depth, that life exists. These sculptures ask the viewer to resist the single fixed view, to move, to return, to look again.

Exhale

 

Biography

Nancy Ivanhoe is a Los Angeles-based sculptor working at the intersection of visual art and modern dance. Drawing from both disciplines, she shapes painted metal screen into transparent, layered sculptures that hold air the way a body holds a breath — poised at the threshold of motion. Informed by the California Light and Space Movement, her work shifts in color, moiré, and shadow as the viewer moves, revealing new forms and hidden passageways. Underlying the work is a deeper conviction: that meaning is never immediate — it accumulates through multiple perspectives and the willingness to look beyond the first surface.

Ivanhoe holds an MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute and is the recipient of the Murphy and Cadogan Contemporary Art Award. Her work has been featured in New American Paintings and on the cover of the 12th Annual Drawing Exhibition of Contemporary Drawing. She is included in the White Columns Gallery Registry and her sculptures are held in private and corporate collections. Recent exhibitions include a solo show at Launch LA Gallery, Patricia Sweetow Gallery, King Studio in Venice, Art Share LA, and the 17th Annual Juried International Exhibition Drawing Discourse at UNC.