Kat Ely

"I create sculptures and installations that embody a tension between permanence and impermanence, between growth and decay as it relates to the biological world. I utilize naturally occurring but refined materials (i.e. glass, bronze, steel) in response to specimens of fungi, rotting wood, and vegetation that I encounter in the wilderness. By carefully crafting reliquaries for natural organisms I attempt to preserve the transient effects of decay and bring them into a gallery context where they can be carefully examined and studied as a cross between art object and scientific specimen.  Increasingly, my sculptural and installation work is created with the effects of time as an essential aspect of the work, with elements of the work continuing to decay, age, or grow. By allowing natural phenomena to continue to alter the work over time, the sculptures take on an element of performance where the work is both the object and the documentation of the object as it changes."