Artists at Work: Shirley Tse
by Vanessa Holyoak
Hong Kong-born, California-based artist Shirley Tse has developed a multivalent installation practice exploring sculptural processes as “models of multi-dimensional thinking and negotiation.” Her current work is informed by her recent move to the Central Coast town of Lompoc, in rural Santa Barbara County, and converges natural and human-made materials to reveal the unsustainable, anthropogenic footprints left on ecosystems we imagine as pristine. This conversation evolved into a discussion of environmental and economic sustainability, transformation and plasticity, and human and non-human cohabitation in an era marked by ecological and social crises.