ARTIST STATEMENT

I create systems for visual articulation of mathematics as a way to generate random visual patterns through form and color distribution.

My signature process, what my career up to this point is built on, is crocheting fiberglass. I create my own fiberglass cloth by crocheting continuous strands of fiberglass into flat geometric shapes. These are formed and hardened with the application of hard-finish polyester resin and the use of gravity, producing indoor, wall-based, crocheted-fiberglass, geometric structures.

My current practice of creating math generated work and crocheting fiberglass began twenty-two years ago when I started making sculpture that dealt with abstracting narratives of identity. Within this context, an exploration of fiberglass and resin led me to crocheting fiberglass roving. Years later, the same pursuit led me to start mapping patterns from math sequences by creating systems for visual articulation of mathematics as a way to generate random visual patterns through form and color distribution, utilizing the grid, Pascal’s Triangle, and sequences from the infinite numbers pi and e.

Ready to expand my artistic vocabulary, I am slowly transitioning the math to 2D surfaces by looking for new systems of mapping the math as I get to know encaustics and look for my own voice in mixed media drawings. Still in its infancy, the 2D work is very much a continuation of an identity dialogue.  All life forms are based on sequencing, on pattern; predetermined yet random.  Some of the drawings are anchored in a grid, solely expressed through geometry.  The sparse appearance of representational imagery and organic forms expresses not only the connection between math and all living things but also my need to reconnect with my drawing hand.

 

BIOGRAPHY

Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1958, Yvette Kaiser Smith currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. Her 1990 BFA from Southern Methodist University in Dallas includes the Yale Norfolk Summer Program.  A full-time artist since receiving an MFA in 1994 from the University of Chicago, Yvette has exhibited extensively at regional museums, art centers, and university galleries throughout the United States and abroad, working with art consulting firms, galleries, and individual clients to create site-specific, private and public commissions since 2005.

Exhibitions include solo shows at Jenoptik Corporation in Jena Germany, Elmhurst Art Museum, and Chicago Cultural Center; two person and group exhibitions at Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids Michigan, Fermilab, San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, Rockford Art Museum, Illinois State Museum Galleries, U.S. Embassies in Moscow and Ankara, and alternative galleries in London, Berlin, and Rome.  Major 2014 project is a commission of a fiberglass grouping that spans 80 linear feet, created for ATLAS, Applied Technologies for Learning in the Arts and Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, to be installed early January, 2015. 2013 activities include a Ragdale Artist Residency, and commissions for St. Mary's Hospital Breast Center in Newburgh, Indiana and University of Chicago Medicine Center for Care and Discovery.  Grants include Illinois Arts Council's Artist Fellowship Award and Governor’s International Arts Exchange Grant.Yvette’s work is also in the collections of Eaton Corporation; Deloitte Chicago; US Embassy, Abuja, Nigeria; and Elmhurst Art Museum.