ANNE LILLY: TO SEE

MAY 20-JUNE 23 2017

VERY is proud to present To See a solo show by kinetic artist, Anne Lilly. Known for her interactive stainless steel sculptures, Lilly has surpassed herself with a spacious breakthrough work titled, “To See”. Incorporating the use of two large rectangular mirrored panels that stand side by side in an aluminum base, reflections are made of all viewers.  She creates a vehicle for transforming an in-the-moment experience of self. 

Two people look into a mirror from opposite sides and see only their own reflection. As the motor turns the mirror panels slowly open up. A trompe-l'œil effect takes place when your nose is replaced that of person opposite of you; then their eyes and checks and shoulders. Once the panels have opened up completely, only the other person remains.  As the panels slide closed again, slowly your own reflection returns. This action elicits new connections between the physical space outside ourselves and our own private, psychological domain. 

For Lilly, “To See” began with curiosity about the disappearance of her own reflection. “How would it feel to witness the erasure of my body?” As the project developed, a second curiosity arose for her: “How would it feel to see my body turn into the body of another person? Asking these questions through the language of materials showed me that while there are many ways of moving a mirror, few of them are useful. For the viewer’s gaze to stay with the mirror’s optics, its illusion of depth, the mirror must move slowly and smoothly, with precision and stability.”

There are innumerable details that either deepen or disrupt this holding of visual attention. By attending to each of them, the sculpture can become a shaper of perception. Lilly’s focus in this work is existential: to lower our protective boundary, dissolve our habitual sense of separateness, and awaken to a new experience of being. 

Anne Lilly was named a 2014 visiting artist at MIT, 2012 artist-in-residence at the Art Institute of Boston, and was awarded the 2011 Blanche E. Colman Grant. She has created artworks for a year-long exhibition of kinetic art at the MIT Museum, the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA, the City of Boston’s ParkArts program, and the Fort Point Public Arts Series. Her work was included in the 2007 DeCordova Museum Annual Exhibition, has been collected by the DeCordova Museum, the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Middlebury College Museum of Art, and is held in corporate and private collections internationally. Through competitive selection in 2005 she was awarded a public commission for a permanent sculpture on the Boston Harbor, and the Boston Globe named her 2003 FPAC exhibition one of the ten best exhibits of the year.

Lilly holds a Bachelor of Architecture, magna cum laude, from Virginia Tech, and has taught at MIT, Massachusetts College of Art, the Art Institute of Boston, the DeCordova School, and Maud Morgan Arts. In a project funded by the NEA, from 2005 to 2007 she collaborated with the DeCordova Museum’s education department to develop and administer an annual institute for teachers, using kinetic sculpture to link the instruction of art and science in middle and high schools. Ms. Lilly is represented by Rice/Polak Gallery in Provincetown, MA, and Will Baczek Fine Arts in Northampton, MA.