Artillery

LOS ANGELES

Peter Macapia at Angstrom Gallery

Peter Macapia’s web of intricate hanging sculptures sweeps through Angstrom Gallery with a lightness and elegance that initially reads as whimsy. However, as we approach these delicate objects made of precisely laser-cut paper, the science and technology visibly involved in each of the artist’s decisions adds weight and complexity to the exhibition.

The show is a continuation of Macapia’s in-depth studies of algorithms for particle physics. Throughout the exhibition, we’re repeatedly confronted with the contrast between the tightness of scientific representation and the excitement of organic beauty. Sculptures encapsulated within acrylic boxes seem a bit abrupt at first, hanging amongst the poetic installation, “Swarm,” but they soon come to make sense as didactic models for the structural forms found in Macapia’s painterly, relief wall pieces and installation elements.

The rhythm of forms enclosing space followed by forms expanding into space is found from piece to piece. This pattern is undoubtedly related to Macapia’s studies, but is used intuitively in the exhibition. Though his research is most critically involved in the process of this work, Macapia’s final execution seems to be steered more by subjective, formal choices than by aesthetically pleasing, observed phenomena — the result is attractively substantive.

—R. Stevie Jones