Axis, 2023
The Axis series explores how memory orbits around vivid points of recollection—moments that anchor time and experience. Layers are built, sanded, and scraped to reveal both clarity and erosion, mirroring the shifting precision of memory. The work reflects how pattern, repetition, and abstraction hold the traces of what we remember and what fades.
In the Axis series, recollection pivots around vivid, etched markers of moments, days, events—an axis of reference points. The work’s surfaces are integral to this exploration—the process of building layers through pixelation and deconstructing through sanding and scraping creates sharp focus alongside imprecision. Axis includes a constellation of 50 sculpted pieces and separate six-foot pieces, all of sculpted aluminum and plexiglass in the shape of X.The exhibition also includes Crossing Lines, drawing on the literal and figurative uses of the word “line”—bloodlines, headlines, lines of civic boundaries and individual identity, and lines emotional, spiritual and physical; Confluence, exploring the potential for abstraction to meaningfully engage memory through fluid surfaces that interrelate with imperfections of recollection; Convex, examining pathways and repetition that create patterns and cycles of memories—ones lost and found; Strata, an ongoing series that began as a series of chants stripped of imagery in the deafening silence after the Twin Towers went down, and reflects a diary chronicling the layering of days; and Vessels, gentle arcs that create a space for reflection, contemplation, healing—thought, time and memory come together as a fluid collective.Hester’s practice is process-driven, building surfaces through the relationship of unpremeditated actions in repetitive patterns of drips, hand-drawn grids, fragmented shapes, unfound imagery, layering and deconstruction to create a visual image where the arbitrary and systematic are at play.
This presentation will debut Hester’s newest series entitled “Axis.” The works are striking sculptures in an X shape. Their forms are crafted with curved plexiglass. Their surfaces are adorned with acrylic, aluminum leaf and wax. They are simultaneously exuberant and introspective, colorful and contemplative. These works embody the hallmarks of her practice—dimensionality, dynamism and color. The artist has an acute sensitivity to texture and flow. The show at SEFA LES will include Hester’s incredible series of fifty small X shaped sculptural works that are about two feet high. Axis will also include her larger six-foot X structures, which are admirable in their transitioning hues and materiality, as well as their scale.These pieces are mounted on the walls, often in grid-like formations, referencing the larger influences in her approach to construction and display.
The exhibition Axis will also feature works from Hester’s previous series that have been exhibited with great success at both SEFA Hudson and SEFA NYC. The 3D X shapes of the“Axis,” the convex acrylic glass of the “Vessels,” the textural metallics of “Crossing Lines,” the patterns of “Convex,” the more traditional paintings on aluminum called “Confluence” and the colorful, lengthy “Strata” are all united here. Indeed, this show acts as a type of retrospective, featuring selections from the most notable of Hester’s works. SEFA has had the pleasure to work with the artist since 2012.
Hester’s practice is a meditation on both her personal and our collective pasts. Throughout her works, Hester consistently acknowledges the seemingly opposing forces that build our daily lives—creating an atmosphere abounding with both elegy and rejuvenation.
The artist’s technique of painting on each substrate—paper, plexiglass and aluminum—goes far beyond conventional brushwork. Through a painstaking and physical process, she applies and removes acrylic paint with the use of sanders, hammers, routers and drills, in a continual process of building, breaking and rebuilding. Surprisingly, even the works on paper are sanded.Surfaces are mottled and textured, scraped and punctured. Layer upon layer of striated, thick colors dance astride more delicate patterned areas, created with collaged bits of metal leaf and complex cross-hatching marks. Yet, strikingly, the eye finds places of rest as colors and patterns conjoin harmoniously, and chaos and control share spaces.
