STEEL / TIME / MEMORY
2016 - 2018
Powder coated steel, vintage skipping rope
120 x 94 x 46 cm
2016 - 2018
Powder coated steel, vintage skipping rope
160 x 105 x 43 cm
2016 - 2018
Powder coated steel, vintage skipping rope
210 x 92 x 47 cm
2016 - 2018
Powder coated steel, vintage skipping rope
180 x 118 x 43 cm
2018
Powder coated steel, mirror, clock pendulum bobs, lead, brass bolts, brass screws, steel screws
82 x 62 x 20 cm
2017
Powder coated steel, mirror, clock pendulum bobs, lead, brass bolts, brass screws, steel screws, bicycle reflectors, car rearview mirror, wood, machine screws
132 x 115 x 30 cm
2010
Pencil, paper, wire, guitar string
39 x 32 x 10 cm
Steel / Time / Memory is a series of works that investigate the transitory nature of form and the difficulty of grasping the strange movement of time. It explores how commercial objects, iconic shapes, and historical references persist—and shift—across temporal and perceptual frameworks. Working with metal, wire, drawn line, paper, and found objects, the series experiments with combinations of elements to produce new machines that reveal the fragile boundary between the imagined, the predictive, the estranged, and the ephemeral. It considers the ways in which human perception, cultural systems, and material traces intersect, and how fleeting moments can be captured, suspended, reflected, or transformed in a complex monochromatic dance.
In Pencil on a D String, delicate industrial wires and guitar strings are stitched onto archival paper, bending and spiraling into three-dimensional forms. Their shadows, cast in strong daylight, are recorded in graphite, creating drawn traces that mirror and extend the physical objects. The work registers the subtle interplay of light, material, and perception, inviting viewers to consider the relationship between the object itself, its shadow, and the memory of its intended purpose—to produce tone. When the work is hung, shifting light casts new shadows that overlay the drawn ones, creating a momentary alignment of past and present. In this way, Evans elevates shadow—the ephemeral, intangible projection of a form—to the same significance as the material object, prompting reflection on how perception, expectation, and memory converge in a delicate, sonic poem.
The Lamentation Series comprises four powder-coated steel sculptures inspired by Martha Graham’s performances Lamentation (1930) and Night Journey (1947). Commissioned for the exhibition The Blue Hour, the works respond to twilight, a liminal moment when the sun sinks below the horizon and the experience of space and time can appear to bend. Evans translates the extremes of Graham’s choreography into suspended, geometric steel forms, capturing the tension between contraction and release—the breathing cycles central to her work. The inclusion of skipping ropes, some contemporary to Graham’s early performances, references both the dancer’s physical gestures and wider cultural motifs of the era, creating a layered dialogue between bodily movement, sculptural form, and symbolic meaning. The works juxtapose the ethereal qualities of human motion with the industrial rigidity of steel, highlighting the interplay between fragility, force, and duration.
Rimbaud HD and The Quiet Sun explore navigation, measurement, and temporal systems. Constructed from cut and powder-coated steel, these compositions combine pendulum bobs, arrows from weathervanes, and smashed mirrors to create suspended mechanisms that allude simultaneously to clocks, instruments, and decorative folk traditions. Mirrors and reflective surfaces, often fractured, introduce spatial complexity and temporal instability, fragmenting both the viewer and the surrounding environment. Domestic objects, such as rear-view reflectors, further anchor the works in everyday experience while extending associations toward travel, observation, and memory. These works occupy an uncertain space between chronometer and collage, structure and symbol, where systems designed to orient bodies in space are rendered ambiguous, and past and present remain in subtle tension.
Across the series, Evans interrogates the preservation of impermanence. Whether through the ghostly shadows of strings, the arrested movements of dancers, or the suspended mechanics of timekeeping devices, Steel / Time / Memory examines the ways in which we measure, interpret, and carry forward traces of information. By suspending gesture, form, and light in multiple layers—material, symbolic, and temporal—the works turn fleeting moments into enduring, enigmatic forms, offering viewers the opportunity to inhabit the intersections of material, time, and memory.
