Petah Coyne, Untitled #1408 (The Lost Landscape)

Unafraid to explore a wide range of subjects or confront contemporaneous themes, Coyne’s innate dualities are transposed in the dichotomous themes of her work: transformation and constancy; life and loss; beauty and darkness. Like her inspirations, the materials incorporated into her sculptures are disparate— she has worked with organic, inherently ephemeral materials, in addition to industrial/man-made materials and objects. Throughout her oeuvre, Coyne has derived inspiration from diverse sources–literature, film, world culture, the natural environment, and of course the artist’s own personal biography. Notably celebrated are under-recognized female authors, and Eastern literary figures. In a 2018 New York Times article by Hilarie Sheets, Amy Gilman, director at the Chazen Museum of Art adeptly describes Coyne’s sculptures as “evocative in the way that great literature stays with you… Petah’s work exposes private things without being explicit, these deep wells of memory and meaning and relationship.”