Carole d’Inverno and Susan Rostow live a block apart. Over the past year, they passed sculptures between studios, texted images and material references, built paper maquettes, and revised their work without fixed goals. Fellow Imaginaries, now on view at Atlantic Gallery, result from this sustained exchange. The exhibition includes fully collaborative hybrid sculptures made jointly by d’Inverno and Rostow, alongside individual works by each artist: sculptures by Rostow and both sculptures and paintings by d’Inverno. Though distinct in authorship, all the works were developed in close dialogue. They respond to one another in form and material and in how they occupy space. Walking into the show feels like entering a toy store—joyous, playful, a place of invention. The visitor becomes a child again, wondering how things were made and how they might move.
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The joint sculptures form the core of the exhibition. Constructed mostly in white or muted tones, the works are wired together, their parts often appearing to carry, swing, or strain. In Yacht Rock, figures pull a load; in Acrobatica, they dangle from a trapeze; in Run Away Momma, they juggle bundles. These works were shaped through sustained revision—moved between studios, altered, reconsidered, and built up over time.
One of the central works, Get on Up, is the first sculpture visible beneath the exhibition title. A white wooden box serves as the base, supporting two upright figures stacked one on top of the other in a totem-like formation. A diagonal ladder made of smooth wooden sticks, joined by a turquoise chain, cuts across the sculpture and bridges the two figures. The figures are tethered to this ladder, which redirects the visual flow in an unexpected zigzag upward. The tight fit of the box base, along with the addition of a small hat, introduces a sense of restraint and specificity. Get on Up embodies the artists’ collaborative method: a process built on mutual trust, improvisation, and the continual reworking of shared forms.
For d’Inverno, the collaboration marked a return to three-dimensional work. She transformed her painting studio into a sculptural space and worked with found objects, paper clay, and papier-mâché. The resulting forms feel precarious, fragmented, and playful. Her paintings, made after the sculptural works were complete, respond to Rostow’s shapes and colors. In works like North-South, she uses building block structures and earthy tones that echo the joint pieces without duplicating them. Her painted marks also translate directly into the wire forms found in the collaborative sculptures.
D’Inverno works in sections. She sees shapes more than narratives, builds compositions through adjacency rather than depth, and avoids transitions. Even in sculpture, she constructs with clear divisions. The wires in her pieces function like drawn lines translated from her paintings. Her structures often feel tethered, off-balance, and fragmentary.
For Rostow, the collaboration shifted her palette from earthy tones to pastels and near-white, and led her to invert her usual sculptural process. She typically begins with wire and prints, then adds clay and pigment. Here, she started with clay, layering prints and wire afterward. The result is a lighter surface, with exposed wires left intentionally visible to connect her work visually and physically to d’Inverno’s.
Their approaches remain distinct. Rostow describes her process as archaeological—adding and subtracting, building texture, and using hand-mixed pigments for control. Her sculptures are layered and dense, more discovered than constructed. Mirrors appear in some works, creating unstable reflections and interruptions in the surface.
The artists shared references—bugs, birds, microorganisms, artworks—and allowed the process to evolve through constant material testing and revision. Living close by allowed for frequent exchange. One artist would bring a piece over; the other would add something, remove something, or reorient it. This recursive process produced works that do not merge their styles, but set them into active relation.
Installation followed the same logic. They invited Bill Frisell, who had worked with them before, to create a soundtrack for the exhibition. His ambient composition does not narrate or interpret the work, but adds a sonic layer that shifts the space’s tempo and focus. The music fills the air, binding the discrete works into a continuous perceptual field.
The exhibition sustains a shared tension—between structure and looseness, fragility and control, improvisation and intent. This tension doesn’t cancel out their differences but draws them into alignment. The collaborative sculptures carry it visibly: wires connecting forms, surfaces shifting direction, balance held just at the edge. The individual works—Rostow’s sculptures, d’Inverno’s sculptures and paintings—amplify that energy rather than break from it. Installed together, they form a spatial conversation where boundaries remain intact, yet the sensibility—and a darkish sense of humor—are unmistakably joint.
All photos courtesy of the artists
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A Collaborative Installation by CAROLE d’INVERNO and SUSAN ROSTOW
with Incidental Music by BILL FRISELL
at Atlantic Gallery @atlanticgallerynyc through May 10, 2025
Artists in Conversation with Etty Yaniv at the Gallery and on Zoom:
Saturday, May 3rd, 5 to 6 pm
RSVP for the Zoom link at fellowimaginaries@gmail.com