NADA House 2023

For NADA House 2023, The Hole presents an outdoor artwork by Carolyn Salas. Salas creates sculptures in iconographic dialogue with art history and ancient material culture. Also embedded within her practice are recurring themes on the conflicting expectations and possibilities of womanhood and feminine identity.

In this exhibition, Salas works entirely in laser-cut, powder-coated aluminum at a thickness optimized for permanent outdoor display. Her sculptures are carefully balanced compositions inspired by the visual lexicon of healing therapies and dream analysis. There is a deliberate vulnerability and resilience in these assemblages of signs: Salas shows us that her stacked and curving geometries, like the caryatids of antiquity, can have great physical and symbolic staying power.

Carolyn Salas was born in Hollywood, CA, and lives and works in Brooklyn and Upstate NY. Salas earned a BFA in sculpture from the College of Santa Fe and an MFA from Hunter College. She has attended residencies at the Abrons Art Center A.I.R. Space Program and The NARS Foundation, New York, NY; Blue Mountain Center, Blue Mountain Lake, NY; the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; and the Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, NM. She has also been a Chashama Studio Space recipient, and an Elizabeth Foundation Studio Program/Space awardee. Selected exhibitions include the Berkshire Museum, Berkshire MA; Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara; Ever Gold [Projects], San Francisco, CA; Casey Kaplan, Koenig & Clinton, Brookfield Arts, SPRING/BREAK Art Show and Kate Werble Gallery, New York, Mrs., Maspeth, NY; Terrault Contemporary and Towson University, Baltimore, MD; Páramo Gallery, Guadalajara, Mexico; and NADA Special Projects, Miami, FL. Salas was named an Artist-in-Residence at Google in 2021 and most recently completed a newly commissioned piece for the US Open, Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in conjunction with Armory Off-site and Mrs.