The intricate architectural qualities in Miranda Clark’s sculptures originated, not through studies, sketches, or textbooks, but from a vision by the lake.
In 2011, Clark was back home in Louisiana when she went for a jog near the 24-mile Pontchartrain Causeway bridge. It was a humid evening, and as the sky grew dark, she saw the headlights blur together in a continuous stream of light. The movement of traffic over the bridge, the angle of the lights, and the seemingly infinite darkness around them created a kind of visual symphony, and she knew in that instant what direction her artwork would take.
“That bridge became so important to me at that moment,” Clark said. “I started asking myself how I could recreate that horizontal experience of walking past the bridge.”
If that moment provided the impetus for making architecture-inspired artwork, Clark’s dedication to craftsmanship and experimentation has given her the ability to see it through. Clark got an early start in the arts, attending high school at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts before moving to Kansas City to study painting and photography at the Art Institute. During a semester abroad at the Paris College of Art, she began experimenting with collage techniques while continuing to learn more about architecture.
From postcard-sized drawings of bridges to scaffolding installations that take up an entire corner of a gallery, Clark’s pieces showcase the same sharp angles and negative spaces of the structures she is inspired by. By removing the elements of architecture from their utilitarian context, she is able to highlight their inherent aesthetic value, giving viewers a new perspective on the patterns and shapes that surround them.
“They all start with images that I create, or that I found,” Clark says. “Some of the newer works have come from created photographs that are then cut and collaged and then retraced.”
While she still enjoys making objects by hand, Clark often uses a CNC router (CNC stands for computer numerical control) to fabricate the large, detailed shapes that make up her work. The router was first suggested by a professor as a way for Clark to make work while recovering from a hand injury and it soon became an integral part of her process. The title of her sculpture 25 Minutes & 13 Seconds refers to the time it took the router to fabricate the object.
Although Clark’s pieces vary in size, scope and choice of materials, she considers them to all be part of the same ongoing project. Whether it’s a series of prisms inspired by the shape of a construction crane outside the window of her downtown Kansas City studio, or layered sheets of drafting vellum that resemble the truss work of a bridge, Clark’s sculptures continue to explore the complex geometric patterns found in architecture and the natural world.
In doing so, she has succeeded not only in expanding the breadth of her studio practice, but in creating visually harmonious conduits for the fascination she felt while observing the causeway bridge. Viewers who spend time with her artwork will no doubt experience that same fascination as well.
– Lucas Wetzel