Lung # 2

Hapaska’s sculptures of hand-painted and buffed fiberglass, polystyrene, and steel often include dead “live” elements: tumbleweed, trees, or in this case, loofahs. She combines them in ways that frame nature as “unnatural”—at once strangely austere, yet corporal and fragile. Her  imposing column of purple shafts holds loofahs as air-conditioning units hold filters: as artificial lungs for processing air in enclosed spaces. Incongruous, and disarming, it may seem to constrict instead of support breath. About her Lung series Hapaska notes: “I wanted to say something personal, so it is best to be quite formal.”