Albany International Airport Art & Culture Program

Within the interior of what was until recently a bustling airport newstand, Nancy Shaver and T. Marie have constructed a sculptural environment that playfully recalls the stacks of products and 24 hour news media familiar to travelers.

Shaver, a shop owner herself, saves, collects and recycles empty food boxes of varying sizes and shapes and covers them in paper, then paints them in vibrant, saturated colors. Accumulated in stacks and arranged upon shelves, these small, bright geometric forms mingle as elements in a painting while at the same time occupying the spaces once held by best sellers, magazines, souvenirs, and the daily news. Flourescent lights reflect upon polished chrome and mirror surfaces, formica and corian simulations of wood and marble. Shaver sought to integrate these aspects of the
space, as well as the existing lines and planes of the shelving units in her installation.

The bold black and white, subtly shifting patterns in T. Marie’s time-based drawing presentation Shelf Life appear on a television monitor in a corner where travelers might once have viewed the latest in national news, advertisements and sensationalized celebrity gossip. Viewers are invited to be transfixed by the repetition of lines and shapes, and their relationship to the other elements in the installation rather than by the frenetic pace of typical television programming.

Photos by Arthur Evans