Silver Ellipses - Samantha McCurdy

8”H x 5”W x 3.5”D

Wood, Latex, Canvas

2026

SHAPES AND SPELLS

This body of work considers shape as a form of spellwork. Each piece operates through illusion not deception, but deliberate focus. Color, form, and material are used to guide attention, redirect it, and hold it in place, much like a magic trick relies on timing and emphasis to shape what the viewer sees.

The works exist within their own visual rules. Surfaces appear smooth, precise, and self-contained. In a world where gravity, tension, and balance feel obvious. Within that order, small disruptions carry outsized power. A puncture through fabric, a metal piercing against a perfect surface, or a sanded edge revealing color beneath becomes a charged gesture, a moment of emphasis that pulls the viewer’s eye exactly where it’s meant to go. These actions function through contrast.

The subtle violence of a piercing, or the abrasion of sanding, breaks the illusion just enough to make the hand visible. Another material enters the work’s reality, shifting its rules and expanding its possibilities. What appears decorative becomes intentional. What seems incidental becomes central. Rather than narrative, the work relies on suspended belief. The viewer completes the spell by accepting the conditions of the piece, and the piece's logic, its gravity, its gestures. In this way, each object becomes a small, self-contained universe, a moment that asks not to be explained, but to be entered.