Kinetic Sculpture

New Orleans sculptor Lin Emery has been creating kinetic sculpture since the 1960s. The idea was the product of a brief experience while washing dishes and watching a spoon balanced on the edge of a cup while water was moving in the cup. This led her to create experiments with water and to stud... Read more

New Orleans sculptor Lin Emery has been creating kinetic sculpture since the 1960s. The idea was the product of a brief experience while washing dishes and watching a spoon balanced on the edge of a cup while water was moving in the cup. This led her to create experiments with water and to study the effect the liquid has on the movement of objects, later studying magnets and wind as sources of movement.

Capturing the energy inherent in nature in her kinetic sculpture, her iconography relies on natural shapes and the forces of nature to set her sculptures in motion. Movement, or kinetic activity, whose aim is to express harmonic patterns visually, is the central element for Emery. The highly polished surfaces of her welded aluminum sculptures evoke a dialogue between their organic connotations and industrial character.

About her work, Emery states: “I choose my forms from the symmetries found in nature; I polish their surfaces to mirror the world around them and I borrow natural forces to set them in motion. The rhythms are influenced by infinite variables: the points of balance, the normal frequency of each element, the interruption of the counterpoise … Then the sculpture takes over, and invents an added dance of its own.”

Emery has exhibited throughout the United States as well as in England, Japan, Australia, Germany and France. In 1997 she completed an immense abstract kinetic sculpture for placement in Osaka, Japan, and was awarded the Grand Prize for Public Sculpture in Japan. She has executed numerous public art commissions, including kinetic sculptures for the Delaware Museum, Hofstra University in New York, and Loyola University of the South. Her work can also be seen in public collections such as the National Collection of America Art, Washington, D.C.; The National Academy of Design in New York, New York; and the New Orleans Museum of Art.