Maria Guzman’s “Moving In”

Local artist Maria Guzman’s “Moving In” exhibit at Lawndale Art Center is about adapting to a new environment. “My dad is Colombian, my mother is from Peru, and I was born in Italy; and that’s what a lot of this show is about,” Guzman says. “It’s all different aspects of moving into a space and that experience of making a home.”

The works in “Moving In” are white, plywood boxes filled with objects that reflect different emotions. Suspense features two boxes suspended in a corner and lined with fabric cut into wavy patterns, “to give that feeling of being in a sort of a dream state where there’s not a firm ground,” Guzman explains. She also made a stuffed-animal monster and a small bed to fit inside one of the boxes. “[The bed] is smaller in scale than the monster; I guess it’s trying to show how small sometimes one feels,” she says. “It’s represents the fear — I don’t know this place, this place is unknown, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

The Pocket series features three boxes stuffed with long, pillow-like sculptures. “It makes me think of comfort, of being warm or being protected,” she says, “being surrounded by all these soft things and making that little space [in between the pillows] the protagonist in each box.” Noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays to Fridays. Through February 23. 4912 Main. For information, call 713-528-5858 or visit www.lawndaleartcenter.org. Free.

Mondays-Saturdays. Starts: Jan. 18. Continues through Feb. 23, 2008

This article appears in Jan 24-30, 2008.