Shoulder Path – sculpture, 2008, aqua resin, foam, fiber glass, painted steel, 109 x 47 x 35 inches.

Written by Henri Julien Sandront
Eve Bailey (1975) is a French-born artist based in Brooklyn, NY.  Eve shares her studio with special effects make-up artist and husband Adam Bailey.  After graduating from the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris she pursued her education at the San Francisco Art Institute and was awarded a number of residencies. She is now making a name for herself in the New York art scene and is currently busy with a number of projects, including a large-scale performance piece involving large sculptural columns as well as a several upcoming residencies and exhibitions.

Shoulder Path, 2008, acrylic, graphite, oil based color pencil on paper, 99.25 H x 101.25 W inches, created in Sculpture Space, Utica, NY, 2008.

It is as if Eve Bailey wanted to give us spontaneity and precision. When it comes to her vast sculptural mechanisms, her body and her mind (no Ying and Yang esotericism intended here) work together in a rather interesting chemistry. As she puts it, “the intellect occurs in the engineering of my structures and the sensuality arises from my body in motion”.

Shoulder Path (Sequence), 2011, C-print, 30 × 20 inches.

With the three-dimensional work Shoulder Path, it is her very own body that drafted the beginning of the sculpture. The artists, covered with wet paint, quickly rolled backwards onto a large piece of paper. The marks of paint became the blueprint from which she skillfully built the design of the sculpture. It is a living sculpture with a twist. The spontaneity of her body is impregnated in the object’s shapes and curves that once were mere movements. And the Genesis is reenacted as the artist performs on the odd piece of design which suddenly makes sense to the viewer again.

Her latest work entitled Intuit is a 7,5 meters long seesaw onto which two performers gracefully maintain their equilibrium as one’s slightest move influences the other one’s balance. The mechanics of the bodies is confronted with a situation that requires a game of precision and intuition.

Dumbo Arts Festival 2011 – Performers: Eve Bailey, Molly Chanoff, Andrea-Jane Dispenziere, Nora Herting, Coco Karol, Andrea LaBouff, Katie Stehura, Claire Unabia and Heather Willems – Camera: Eduardo Cure and Emily Watson – Project made possible with the generous support of Triangles Arts New York, Material For The Arts and Powerplay. © Eve Bailey 2011