Caroline Levy – Felt Spring

Caroline Levy creates familiar, shared human experiences that play with perception and reality. In Felt Spring, she investigates the making of a generic child's drawing, asking what would happen if the drawing was transferred from flat paper to a 3-D, life-size diorama? A chalkboard sketch video is projected on the back wall and a landscape created mimicking the way a child fills in stylized parts one at a time: starting with the grass, then the sun, clouds, sky, etc. Drawn elements are mirrored to the physical space of the room - sky created with draped blue fabric with quilting batting cutout clouds, painted paper rows of grass sticking straight up from the floor, a bird, a bee, flowers and "heat rays" suspended in front of sun, all meticuously constructed from felt. The choice of these objects and materials is childlike, but the detail-oriented execution is of an experienced hand, blurring the lines between adult and child experiences. Two perspectives: one young and naive, beginning to understand the world - another as an adult shaped by experience, institutions and culture.