Grafly Gallery
In August 2020, the Ulrich Museum of Art installed Alice Aycock’s large-scale outdoor sculpture Twister Grande (tall) as part of the Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection. A major commission, this is the Museum’s first contribution to the shaping of WSU’s new Innovation Campus. The work was selected for this site because it is a significant piece of contemporary sculpture and because it captures the spirit of the dramatic changes that have taken place at the university in the last decade. It is, moreover, a fitting and lasting tribute to the contributions of President John Bardo, who initiated and oversaw those changes prior to his passing in 2019. Alice Aycock, the artist who created Twister Grande (tall), is a force of nature in her own right who has blazed a unique path working within the art world at the intersection of sculpture, architecture, technology, and science. Alice Aycock in the Studio is an installation of drawings and ephemera that seeks to illuminate her creative process and contextualize Twister Grande (tall) as part of the larger artistic practice that has unfolded over the course of 50 years. The drawings and photographs on view here all date to the last decade, but they illuminate career-long fascinations with capturing the movements of a world in ever-changing motion, understanding the relationship between order and chaos, and identifying the forms, patterns, and metaphors that span nature and technology alike.
The Ulrich Museum is grateful to Alice Aycock for her collaboration on Alice Aycock in the Studio and her generosity in sharing the ideas that inform this exhibition. We would also like to thank her studio, particularly Amelia Midori Miller, for assisting with the logistics of putting together this installation. The exhibition is generously supported by Jane McHugh. With gratitude, we honor the donors who aided the commission of Twister Grande (tall): Fidelity Bank Foundation, Lou and Terry Heldman, George and Eleanor Lucas, and Lee and Ron Starkel.
Read the exhibition guide.
Banner: Alice Aycock, From the Series Entitled "Sum Over Histories": Study for a Timescape V (detail), 2013. Inkjet print, hand-painted watercolor on paper. Courtesy of the artist and Marlborough Gallery.
