Silver Linings: delicate Drawing by Carol Prusa, 2009.

The exhibition consists of seven 2-d works and eight hemispheres which Prusa refers to as “domes.” The domes are clear acrylic hemispheres created by a Canadian company under her direction. She then puts several layers of gesso onto the outsides and then draws on them with a silverpoint tool and graphite, adds titanium white pigment and uses silver leaf to complete her images. Plus she drills tiny holes in the domes and has white LED lights that twinkle from within. Within the largest of these domes is a brief repetitive video that shows the exterior pattern of the dome in motion. The domes play off of the idea of other worlds, other universes, and the potential for things to be nearly identical to what we know while being still distant and different. The domes range in size from 1′ diameter to 5′ diameter and have an incredible presence.

Her 2-d works, which are now as large as 4’x14′ and 8’x8′, present similarly detailed and patterned images that bear much in common with either the structures of the universe or the structures of the most minute features that make up the material world around and within us. For this reason, she conceives her work to have an immediate, big impact while including astonishingly fine detail to lure viewers closer. It’s delicate, beautiful, often suggestive of creative forces either through its floral imagery or the inclusion of Adam and Eve, and spectacular in its scale and drama.

Prusa lives in Boca Raton and is a prior Florida Individual Artist Fellowship recipient.