Palm Star

Sivan Nishri’s works are driven by a curiosity about the basic behaviors of materials: She works with the discoveries and accidents that occur when one lets materials do as they will. From these incidents in matter, images emerge, metamorphose and concatenate from one another as they change form and state.

In the exhibition “Palm Star,” Nishri presents two bodies of work that evolved simultaneously: paintings in mixed media on paper, and sculptures based on casts in different materials. The sculptures are created from one source object—a Washingtonia palm frond—that undergoes a series of transformations.

The material process is equally present in Nishri’s paintings and in her sculptures: the paintings result from the way the pigments are absorbed in the paper, washed away or react with it. The saturated colors and intricate patterns in the paintings lead the viewer to a world of tropical mystery that lies in the transmutation of the work materials.