Thick and Thin

January 16–February 17, 2026
lisa walcott

Thick and Thin explores the balance of holding on and falling apart. Through kinetic sculpture, installation, drawing and photography, Walcott reflects on the subtle strain of daily labor — both visible and invisible, physical and emotional. Utilizing familiar materials such as cords, bristles, insulation, shelf brackets and fan motors, she creates precarious, often humorous environments where the functional becomes formal, drawing attention to the routines of care and maintenance. During her sabbatical in the spring semester of 2025, Walcott studied the material and conceptual possibilities of craft, exploring material traditions, ideas of labor and artistic hierarchies through art-historical research and hands-on making.

Walcott is interested in overlap, ambiguity and complexity — areas where one thing can also be another. Slippery language, contingent gestures, hybrid forms and visual complexities guide her process. Movement is often tethered and cyclical, powered by absurd or improvised systems that mimic real-life care routines and spontaneous ingenuity. These sculptural actions are humble yet charged, revealing the strange choreography involved in maintaining balance, especially when things seem on the verge of falling apart.

ARTIST BIO

Lisa Walcott is an artist and associate professor of art in sculpture at Hope College. She holds an MFA in sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a B.A. in studio art from Trinity Christian College. For over a decade, she has maintained an active national exhibition record, showcasing more than 20 solo and two-person exhibitions at institutions such as the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, ARC Gallery, Manifest Gallery, and the Saugatuck Center for the Arts. Her work has been supported by research initiatives, including two Borgeson student-faculty summer research projects, and has appeared in exhibition catalogs and public media. Walcott lives and works in Holland, Michigan, where she resides with her husband and two kids.

Read the full press release