Light Eaters
Gracelee Lawrence
May 9 - Nov 9, 2026
LIGHT EATERS transforms the Window Works by Collar Works at Vicina in Troy, NY, into a site of vegetal activity within the city’s hard-scaped expanse. One-way mirrored film, holofan videos, and suspended sculptures animate the window, merging digital illusion with organic processes.
Looping imagery expands and contracts in continuous cycles of growth and decay, translating plant time into rhythms perceptible to human experience. Sculptural forms, formally drawn from invasive species like bittersweet and bull thistle, hang in states of reconfiguration: modular, adaptive, resilient. The work frames plant life not as backdrop, but as a force to aspire towards: an intelligence that builds, sustains, and perhaps outlasts us. LIGHT EATERS beckons a shift in attention: toward the constant labor of plants and ways of seeing that extend beyond the human.
Please join us for an opening reception on May 9, 2026, from 7-9 PM at 130 4th Street, Troy, NY. An artist walkthrough of the installation will be at 8 PM. Additional programming, including a plant walk and an artist panel, will be announced soon.
“The world is, above all, everything plants could make of it.”
— Emanuele Coccia
Gracelee Lawrence (they/she) makes work testing the intersections of food, the body, and technology, occupying the transfigurative space between physical and digital realities. Manipulating their body by merging it with edible plants through 3D scanning and software manipulation, their sculptures investigate the gendered and fragmented nature of bodies while navigating the ecological and ethical complexities of bioplastics, particularly those derived from GMO corn. Their work questions sustainability narratives, industrial agriculture, and the compartmentalization of digital and physical spaces, all while staying grounded in materiality.
Lawrence has attended more than 20 residencies worldwide and debuted their second solo show in New York at Postmasters in June 2022, earning a glowing review by Roberta Smith in The New York Times. They are the Head of Sculpture at the University at Albany, SUNY, with recent exhibitions at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Wasserman Projects, and CHART. Their large-scale outdoor sculptures have been installed at Wave Hill, Franconia Sculpture Park, and other venues. A member of the MATERIAL GIRLS collective, they are a recipient of the 2024 Dr. Nuala McGann Drescher Leave, a 2019 Jerome Fellowship, and a 2016–17 Luce Scholarship. Press highlights include The New York Times, The New Yorker, Hyperallergic, The Creative Independent, and MAAKE Magazine. Outside of their work, they are an enthusiastic dancer, lifelong horse person, and avid gardener. See more of Gracelee’s work at www.graceleelawrence.com