Evelyn Statsinger

Shell Masks

In Shell Masks, Evelyn Statsinger explores the tension between man-made and organic materials. After growing up in Brooklyn, New York, and spending her formative years in Chicago, Statsinger found solace and creative inspiration in the lakeside dunes of Allegan, Michigan. Statsinger produced this painting as part of a series of twelve abstract works based on sketches of shells and fossils she encountered there. She was drawn to both the fragility of the objects and their capacity to endure the natural world over a timescale beyond the human lifespan—an apt analogy for the strength, yet current vulnerability, of Earth’s climate. The defined shapes in the center of the image starkly contrast with the fluid background, perhaps referencing the divide that Statsinger knew well between the city and the countryside, the constructed and natural environment. Given the continuing anxieties surrounding the Cold War during this period, this painting has also been interpreted as a comment on natural versus manufactured power sources, such as nuclear weapons.