Margo Sawyer | Synchronicity of Color, 2017

Synchronicity of Color at The Lancaster by Margo Sawyer is based off of a word term that Carl Yung created called Synchronicity, which means the meaningful coincidences. When two different events happen concurrently, and there's almost like this AHA moment. And with the use of color in sculpture, it's actually a really complicated and difficult thing to do. And the works look sort of composed as if a painting rather than a brush stroke. Each box or each element is a particular color and it nests and resides next to and around other particular colors. So, there's really a sort of a color play almost in the tradition of, say, Alba's or Mondrian's early work. So, the piece is made out of sheet metal. I work with a precision metal fabrication company. There's a lot of specificity as to the radius of the bends of the metal. The geometry is such that they nest together perfectly. So, they're each a double or triple or a quadruple of almost a foot. The colors are quite specific. So, in the center is this very beautiful kind of minty green, sparkly green. And I've been working recently with a painter who is a car restorer called Jeff's Resurrections. And I go into a shop and he's got, like, Porsches and Rolls Royces and really beautiful antique cars, and there'll be a specific color, and I'll go, oh, my gosh. So that particular central element was the color of the car of King Hussein of Jordan's Jaguar. Some of the others are sort of classic reds, like a sports car red and blue is sort of a sun is setting kind of blue. And often it's really about the unexpectedness of the colors that come together. So, a lot of my work really wants to create a sense of place and a centering. So, by working abstractly, there's a sort of contemplative quality to them. The name also refers to a work that's very beloved by Houstonians, called Synchronicity of Color, Red and Blue and there are these two buildings that are in the park at Discovery Green. There's also the piece at The Lancaster also has this is an homage to Shinto Buddhism in the sense that the colors are sort of reference the colors that you would have around a Shinto shrine in Japan. The blue, the red, green, the pink celebration of life. So, I hope my piece when people come to the Mezzanine, it's a beautiful welcome, and it's always wonderful for me to come here and see the piece--it's still vibrant and joyous.