Liz Hickok

In the body of work, Sets & Tests, I photograph the sets, props, and experiments that appear in my constructed environments. Against a simple white background and printed at a large scale, the components can be explored in detail—and in stark contrast to the color-saturated, luminous, and sometimes chaotic scenes that they formed.

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In my Ground Waters series I create miniature scenes in which natural and urban environments are overgrown with crystal formations. While the sculptures’ colors are pleasing and inviting, the sharp formations are clearly chemical in nature, referencing the pollutants that seep into, even saturate, our environment. I photograph the structures’ transformation, creating time-lapse videos for presentation together with my still images. I also execute large-scale site-specific works in public spaces, enabling me to manipulate—even further—­the perceived scale of my sculptures.

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I cast elaborate scale models of urban sites out of Jell-O, light them from below, and bring them to life with photography and video. The molded shapes of the city blur into a jewel-like mosaic of luminous color and volume. Remade in an unexpected material, seemingly permanent architectural structures of our cities are transformed into something precarious and ephemeral. Their fragility quickly becomes a metaphor for the transitory nature of human artifacts.

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