Buoyant Force
Sue Wribican
2020 | Steel
Owner: Tephra ICA
Buoyant Force is a 50-foot steel sculpture by Sue Wrbican inspired by the paintings of American Surrealist Kay Sage (b. 1898, Albany, New York; d. 1963, Woodbury, Connecticut). Sage is recognized for her paintings of scaffolded structures and furled fabric in desolate landscapes. Tephra ICA organized the first comprehensive exhibition of Wrbican’s work, entitled Well Past the Echo, in Fall 2017. The exhibition featured photography, maquettes of Sage-inspired structures, and a site-specific installation. It was featured in The Washington Post and East City Art. Based on the success of the exhibition, Tephra ICA commissioned Wrbican to realize one of her structures at full-size in Reston Town Square Park.
About Sue Wribican
In 2014, Wrbican presented her installation and lecture “Continue the Temporary and It Becomes Forever” at the Zizek Studies conference at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning. In 2015, her work The Eventual Outcome of an Instant was constructed at the Seligmann Center in Sugar Loaf, NY. She has held residencies at the Robert Rauschenberg Residency in Captiva, Florida; Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California; The Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida; and STUD Residency in Catlett, Virginia. She is a founding member of the Floating Lab Collective whose projects have been exhibited widely in venues such as ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany and the Nathan Cummings Foundation, NYC, NY. Her video Back Roof is part of Miranda July’s Joanie 4 Jackie Archive at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, CA.
Wrbican is an Associate Professor and Director of Photography at the School of Art at George Mason University and her education includes an MFA in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design and BA in English Writing with a concentration in poetry from the University of Pittsburgh.