Carolyn Salas / Night Vision / The Hole Los Angeles
- LA Art Documents
- May 19
- 2 min read
olyn Salas
Night Vision
The Hole, Los Angeles, CA
April 19 - May 17, 2025
Carolyn Salas' second solo exhibition at The Hole includes key works from her recent museum show at the NMSU Art Museum in Las Cruces, New Mexico, alongside new stained wood inlay pieces and a site-specific freestanding sculpture for the gallery.
Salas’ practice sits somewhere between sculpture and spell. Inspired by ancient reliefs, caryatids, and sacred architecture, her work draws on a deep lineage of female form—but pushes it into new terrain. Her figures are fragmented, stylized, sometimes ghostlike. Rendered in carved wood, marble, or aluminum, they evoke Matisse cut-outs, Egyptian carvings, and the sensuous purity of Brancusi, while speaking in a distinctly contemporary, feminist language.
Many of the works begin as hand-drawn sketches or foam-core maquettes, then move through digital 3D renderings before being realized in aluminum and wood. Even with the use of industrial processes, the final objects retain a hand-wrought feel—unpolished edges, highlighted wood grain, and an intuitive sense of balance. Though she often uses color on surrounding walls and pedestals, Salas uses bright white frequently for her sculptures—not as purity, but as obliteration. That palette decision adds to the show’s tonal complexity: Night Vision is less about literal darkness and more about the night as psychic space, dream logic, subconscious navigation.
The installation transforms the gallery into a kind of modernist dreamscape. Works shift dramatically as you walk around them—flattened from one angle, activated by shadow the next. Her sculptures change the space, the architecture becomes part of the work’s choreography, and viewers become part of the piece’s unfolding. There’s a powerful vibe to Salas’ work—a word I hate to use but will try to explain. The mood is real: her installations are designed with a deep sense of atmosphere and emotional tone. There’s a designer’s taste and style, but also substance—psychic depth, feminist thought, and an intuitive sense of how materials hold memory and meaning.
