Cornelia Kubler Kavanagh

Cornelia Kubler Kavanagh: Deconstructing the Oval
at Graham Shay 1857 (August 30-September 30, 2023) 

Artist Biography

For the past 37 years, Cornelia Kubler Kavanagh has worked exclusively as a sculptor.  Teaching herself to carve stone in the Modernist tradition of Moore, Hepworth and Arp, Kavanagh gradually developed a style of her own characterized by rounded, sensual shapes.  As demand for her sculpture increased, Kavanagh turned to carving polystyrene, then finishing her maquettes in plaster, resin or polymer for casting in bronze, aluminum and stainless steel.

Although Kavanagh’s subject matter is diverse, she is continually drawn to nature for inspiration, and has mounted several exhibitions that address environmental concerns.  These include tsunami waves, “Sea Butterflies” as surrogates for ocean acidification, and ice moulins as markers of global warming.  Her most recent museum show, at The Yale Peabody Museum, celebrated the goddess figures of the Upper Paleolithic, the world’s first three-dimensional representations of the female form.

In 2005, Kavanagh represented the United States Virgin Islands Council on the Arts in the 51st Venice Biennale with five Shape of Time sculptures that honored her father’s, noted art historian, George Kubler’s seminal treatise, The Shape of Time (Yale University Press, 1961).  From 2013 to 2016, Kavanagh collaborated with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History titled: FRAGILE BEAUTY: The Art & Science of Sea Butterflies. 

Kavanagh has participated in three OPEN exhibitions in Venice-Lido, Miami’s design district during Art Basel Miami Beach, New York’s American Museum of Natural History, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA, SOFA, Chicago, IL, and numerous regional museums and galleries throughout the country.  Important installations include the Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven, Yale-New Haven Hospital, the Princeton Medical Center in Plainsboro, NJ, the Dwight School in Englewood, NJ and the Lancaster Winery in Healdsburg, CA.

Artist Statement

For me the oval has always been the most pleasing form from which to embark on a sculptural exploration. As opposed to a circle, an oval’s elongated shape allows for greater flexibility in removing mass while staying true to the lines of the exterior so the negative space remains complimentary to the whole. I also like the way the oval’s curves bend light both inside and out of the form.

In this latest series of sculptures, called “Oval Edge Forms,” I have tried to create conditions where negative space becomes such an integral part of the form that the oval — in its essential elliptical configuration — is sensed by what is missing. Each of the sculptures in this exhibition has been carved after first starting with a solid three-dimensional oval form. Some were “egg-like,” some almost as thick as they were wide, and others elongated and tapered. My intention was to convey the harmony of the original elliptical shape while offering added layers of visual interest through what has been removed.  I feel the oval is most effective if all carving is resolved with smooth finishes. In this way the interplay of light on both interior and exterior surfaces creates shadows that echo and enhance the oval’s fundamental curves.

Cornelia Kubler Kavanagh