As a sculptor, printmaker, and painter, Sondra N. Arkin is known for her exploration of line, space, and boundaries. Modular installations use common materials such as wax, ink, shellac, steel, foraged natural, found, and manufactured materials. In her paintings, luminous surfaces are saturated with color and atmosphere. Prints and drawings further explore the intersection of atmospheric and linear formations. Ethereal orbs of steel wire form “drawings in space” that amplify the dialogue between the viewer and object, and installations of found objects further explore the idea of environment.
Arkin has participated in many exhibitions in both galleries and museums, and her work has been represented in a number of private, corporate, and public collections including the U.S. State Department’s Art In Embassies Program, the DC Art Bank, and public art in Crystal City, Virginia. She has been awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities multiple times.
In addition, as Curator of the DC City Hall Art Collection, she assembled for the District a remarkable collection that includes many of the finest artists who have lived in the nation’s capital. As the largest permanent collection of regional art on public display, it constitutes a unique resource. She has curated many independent projects, regularly programs alternative arts spaces, and is deeply involved in the mid-Atlantic arts community. She lives and works in Washington, DC.
STATEMENT
My work draws from both urban and natural environments using multiple perspectives forming images that might be seen as amoebae or galaxies. As such, my work often strikes viewers as familiar but not particularly specific. The paintings have been described as containing forms that lay “suspended just below the surface,” and that is my intent.
Our relationship with what is all around us – but cannot be seen, what we fail to notice, and what hides in plain sight – attracts me. My interest in how we relate to other entities focuses on connections and boundaries within an environment. My work illuminates things such as cells floating in water, dust motes in air, limbs woven to canopy – all objects with whom we share this space. My work advances ideas most important to me – issues of ecological stewardship and individual responsibility – by asking for a close examination of what is around us.
Marks are alternatingly hazy and sharp, in layers suggesting a depth much greater than the thin panel can hold. The viewer is invited into a reverie of spatial awareness: to look beyond what is in focus, or look so closely at what is in focus that visual anchors are blurred. The wax and ink panels illuminate what is contained in the atmosphere, while my 3D forms in steel shape clouds of smoke or seem poised to mutate fluidly like a flock of migrating birds.
It is impossible to respect our relationships without acknowledging the fragility of life itself. Ultimately, I am concerned with the impact that we have on this planet in the short time that we are alive. It seems to me that we bear a responsibility to move through this world with a whisper, as respectful guests would, using our knowledge to nurture the world in which we live.