On May 7, Visitor Center will unveil Pricked and Broken a solo exhibition by Julia von Eichel (May 7 – June 11). The artist will present a series of brightly hued wall sculptures and paintings inspired by the emotions she felt while quarantined in Upstate New York.

Von Eichel’s idiosyncratic sculptures appear to be meticulous, obsessively structured networks. Metaphors for life itself, they bring to mind a range of subtle transformations, from memento mori to the experience of birth: the tension and dynamism of life (spikes, atom-like Wiffle balls) breaks through the smothering, all enveloping shroud of death (the silk coated with gesso).

These sculptures will be in conversation with a series of oil pastels on mylar: clusters of branched, tubular filaments merging with luminous, kinetic networks of swirls that almost vibrate when hit by light. Nature’s pulse permeates Julia’s work, which is continuously informed and inspired by her passion for gardening and landscaping.

Ultimately, she seeks to create a complex interplay between the natural and the imaginary world.