Sarah Tortora
Meridian
April 5—May 11, 2024
Sarah Tortora, Meridian (detail), 2020-24. 68 ½ x 52 x 68 inches, mixed media.
Ulterior Gallery is thrilled to present Meridian, Sarah Tortora’s first solo exhibition in New York City. Central to this exhibition is a striking large-scale sculpture, which shares the title with the show, Meridian. It will be the focal point connecting a constellation of new ceramic sculptures.
In geography, a meridian symbolizes an imaginary line of longitude that encompasses the Earth's poles. Alternatively, it symbolizes the vital energy channels that traverse living organisms. Drawing from both geological and metaphysical inspirations, Tortora's work explores the concept of meridians within Ulterior Gallery’s space, situated on Broadway, New York’s oldest North-South thoroughfare, imagining it to be a conceptual meridian of the city’s topology.
Tortora’s sculpture refers to tenuous and transient moments in time. The allusion of stones freshly extracted from the earth by human hands or machines are poised on the cusp of becoming: architecture, sculpture, or objects transformed through labor. The structure of Meridian is stratified, reminiscent of tectonic plates, but also evokes an altar, with intricate sculptural elements adorning its sides, inviting contemplation and examination. Tortora deliberately references a state of anticipation—of what is about to be. The arrows visible at bottom conjure ideas about scientific diagrams, and signal direction—they are navigational markers, pointing downward to suggest the physical origin of these ideas. The arrows, the spirals, and other proto-linguistic motifs embedded in the sculpture suggest the beginnings of language, perhaps fragments of narratives. This work emphasizes history as a fluid process of discovery, where construction can also be an act of unveiling.
The ceramic works mounted on the wall are a relatively new medium for Tortora. Their iron content reveals the magnetic field of the earth at the time of firing, further emphasizing the artist’s connection to the ground. These hand-wrought amalgams evoke familiar narratives, yet operate parallel to language, blurring boundaries between physical relationality and perceptual misidentification. Simultaneously, the presence of these works is warm and relational, and the scale of Tortora’s mark-making discloses the physical presence of the human hand.
Sarah Tortora (b.1988, New Haven, CT) is a sculptor based in Brooklyn, NY. Tortora graduated with a MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2013 and participated in the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in the same year. Since moving to New York in 2020, Tortora has been actively exhibiting nationwide. Tortora has received numerous residencies and awards, including: The Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship at ISCP in Brooklyn, NY (2022-23); Athena Standards Residency, Athens, Greece (2019); The Alice C. Cole 1942 Fellowship, Wellesley College, MA (2015-16); Yaddo Artist in Residence, NY (2014); and MacDowell Artist in Residence, NH (2014). Tortora is currently the Windgate Artist in Residence at Purchase College, NY. Tortora is scheduled to have a solo exhibition at Richard and Dolly Maass Gallery at Purchase College this fall.
