Anteroom: Sarah Ippolito | Growing by Living Together
Sarah Ippolito (b. 1986, Houston, TX) is an artist and avid scuba diver based in Altadena, CA. Her work in ceramic, wood, and metal captures the poetry of motion, color, and form of undersea creatures; abstractions that seek to translate the embodiment of an alien world, just beyond the shore.
The majority of ocean life is concentrated in the sunlit upper layer of the sea and is heavily concentrated in coastal zones. Teeming with life, sheer reef walls plunge from this sunlit zone deep into the ocean, confronting experienced divers with a solid vertical wall of coral, sponge, anemone, crinoid, tunicate, and other species. Face to face with this surface, which crackles and sings, wiggles and crawls, and vibrates with neon color, Ippolito confesses that at times being an artist feels like impossible hubris.
The two new tondos in Ippolito’s Anteroom project aim to evoke the emotions and sensations of diving along the reef wall; the superorganism created by all of these creatures living in close proximity, building infrastructures of each other and the rock. Cooperation makes coral reefs a haven for marine life; the reef literally grows because these creatures live together.
In the west, round paintings and reliefs were originally inspired by Roman shields and deschi da parto, elaborately painted wooden trays made to celebrate the birth of a child. Circular illustrations also carry a scientific reference: ecology diagrams, microscope lenses.
Alongside the tondos, a new large wall mounted sculpture singles out a single plane of the large forms of Ippolito’s freestanding work. Free from the need to stand, the form floats like a creature suspended in the water column. The implied undulating, floating, benthopelagic locomotion expresses the free motion and weightlessness of being suspended in water and the unique movements and ways of experiencing inherent to the soft bodies of ocean creatures.
Ippolito’s new work is riven through with life and liveliness. At its core, her practice is informed by empathy and curiosity, a genuine desire to experience the unique perception and embodiment of other creatures. Her sculptures are exuberant celebrations of the reproduction and seductive charms of the natural world, letting viewers cherish and luxuriate in the resilience and tenacity of life beyond the human.
Sarah Ippolito (b. 1986, Houston, TX) is a Los Angeles based artist working in sculpture, installation, and drawing. Informed by time spent underwater as a scuba diver, her work explores ocean biodiversity, the sensory world of nonhuman organisms, and our shared connection to water. Through vibrant color, evocative texture, and magnified scale, her biomorphic sculptures exude vitality, invite contemplation of the interconnectedness of life and the vast liquid realm that defines our planet.
Ippolito received a BFA in Sculpture from the University of Houston (2010) and an MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2012). Ippolito has presented solo exhibitions at Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, CA (2024); Not There Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2023); the A+D Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2019); and Adjunct Positions, Los Angeles, CA (2014). Recent group exhibitions include Massey Klein Gallery, New York, NY (2024); Forest Lawn Museum, Glendale, CA (2023); La Loma Projects, Los Angeles, CA (2023); the Future Perfect, Los Angeles, CA (2019); the Center for the Arts Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, CA (2014). She is the recipient of the Henrik Vibskov P:I:G Award (2023); and the A+D Museum Alley Fellowship (2019).
