Lucy Williams' Architectural Reliefs Explore Modernist Emptiness at McKee Gallery

Lucy Williams presents thirteen bas-relief constructions at David McKee Gallery in New York from March 31 to May 6, 2006. Her exhibition "The Day the Earth Stood Still" merges architectural models with craft materials to depict modernist interiors and exteriors. Works like Frankfurt Airport (2005) and Shopping Centre (2006) combine mat board, foam core, acrylic sheets, needlepoint, thread, yarn, and pillow stuffing. These pieces range up to two feet wide with three-inch projections, creating subtle shadows that disrupt conventional perspective. Williams sources imagery from magazines and books, transforming them into tactile objects that evoke unsettling emptiness. The Glass-Walled House in Summer (2005) features intricate organic elements with paper branches and nylon thread, while The Peoples' Palace (2005) presents bleached white interiors using overlapping board layers. Office of the Dean (2005) depicts Yale Art and Architecture building's stark interior with a lone colored paper plant. Williams' compositional approach references Ed Ruscha's 1960s diagonal gas station compositions. Her work suggests post-World War II nuclear fears remain in contemporary consciousness through reduced-scale modernist structures. Materials sometimes correspond to represented surfaces, other times contrast deliberately. The exhibition title references the 1951 science fiction film, framing these architectural models as abandoned aesthetic monuments.