"Ultimately, all of us are faced with the same dilemma; the pictures we draw, the systems we build, can never fully embrace the richness and the unruliness of creation, Yet it is endemic to our species that we keep trying, huddled on our tiny planet, shining our flashlights into the darkness.” ~ George Johnson Drawn to the unknown, I studied chemistry, titrating answers in the lab. I became an artist to work outside limits and established methods. Like scientists, I seek new ways to explain our place. I desire to manifest the most complete understanding of my world, offering new ways of knowing. Specifically, digesting contemporary theories in physics and seeking liminal spaces (like eclipses), is resulting in work that creates worlds with erotically charged geometries. Known for large scale silverpoint drawings incorporating sculptural forms and new technologies, I yearn to realize a radical vision that takes into account chaotic interactions central to the evolution of the universe, to unearth its vital beauty. I seek to give form to thin spaces that evoke the dark matter that both surrounds and binds us together. As Mary Oliver beautifully wrote in Upstream , “Its (arts) concern is the edge, and the making of a form out of the formlessness that is beyond the edge.” Carol Prusa is a mid-career contemporary artist known for her meticulous silverpoint technique and use of unexpected materials from sculpted resin and fiberglass to metal leaf and LED lights. In the 2015 catalogue essay for the exhibition Drawing in Silver and Gold: Leonardo to Jasper Johns , Bruce Weber called Carol Prusa “one of the most innovative artists working in metalpoint today.” Born in Chicago, Prusa lives and works in South Florida and exhibits internationally. Her work is included in excellent public and private collections, including the Perez Art Museum (Miami), The Museum of Arts and Design (NYC), Telfair Art Museum (Savannah), and the Francie Bishop Good and David Horvitz Collection. Carol Prusa had a solo exhibition at the Boca Museum in 2019-20 and upcoming, the Ann Norton Sculpture Garden and Museum in 2020. In 2018, Prusa was exhibited alongside Stanford Biggers, Cauleen Smith, Josh Faught, and Lauren Kalmar in The Future of Craft (curated by Shannon Stratton) at The Museum of Arts and Design (NYC), and she also participated in FLATT??? (2018), curated by William Stover. In 2017, Prusa was featured in Glasstress which included artists Petah Coyne, Michael Joo, Vik Muniz, Cornelia Parker, Thomas Schutte, Fred Wilson. She participated in the 2015-2016 Miami Biennale (curated by Adriana Herrera), along with twelve other artists, including El Anatsui and James Turrell. In 2015 Prusa was one of 40 artists chosen by the American Academy of Arts and Letters to exhibit in the 2015 Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts (NYC). She was nominated by Judy Pfaff, and the selection committee that year was chaired by Eric Fischl. In 2014, Prusa’s work was exhibited alongside works by Louise Nevelson, Nick Cave, Julian Opie, and George Segal at the Jewish Museum of Florida in an exhibition titled The Chosen . Other notable group exhibitions include Luminous Line (2010) at Scripps College (where Prusa exhibited with Morgan O’Hara, Lucy Pullen, and Marietta Hoferer), Set to Manual (2009) at Girls’ Club (with Vija Celmins, Annette Messager, Kiki Smith, and Jessica Stockholder), and Starry Messenger (2009) at the Louisiana Museum of Art and Science (with Vija Celmins and Eva Lee). She did a three-month fully funded residency at the prestigious Kohler Artist in Industry among other artist residencies. Prusa received a SECAC Artistic Achievement Award in 2017. She was previously awarded a Brown University Howard Foundation Fellowship and several times awarded a State of Florida Fellowship and South Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship. Prusa has also curated notable exhibitions, including co-curating Pour (2013) at Lesley Heller (NYC) and Asya Geisberg Gallery (NYC), featuring works by David Reed, Carrie Moyer, Roland Flexner, and Jackie Saccoccio, among others. In a 2014 feature in Elephant magazine, Margherita Dessanay writes that Carol Prusa uses art to investigate “the boundless wonders of the universe.” And Kara Walker-Tome, writing for The Art Economist Magazine (June 2011), states: “Carol Prusa creates a new vision of the powers of the universe in each artwork she makes. Inspired by cosmology and all of the natural sciences, Prusa creatively explores these practices, arriving at pictorially stunning re-interpretations of their theories.”