It can be very fluid

Installation image from Carlie Trosclair’s show “the shape of memory,’’ at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, through Sept. 14.

— Photo by Dave Clough

The gallery says:

“Metaphor is essential to Carlie Trosclair’s work: architecture as body, architectural surface as skin, latex as skin, the domestic space as a vessel of memory and past lives. The resulting sculptures and installations explore the vulnerability and ephemerality of home, as both a physical space and a concept. The poetic takes on a visceral existence in Trosclair’s ghostly sculptures—created by painting liquid latex onto man-made and natural surfaces, allowing it to dry, and then peeling it away. The milky liquid (tapped from rubber trees), applied in multiple layers, dries to a translucent amber.

“At times, the latex picks up color from the original surface; in other works, the artist adds natural pigment to suggest the passage of time.

“Trosclair, the daughter of an electrician, recalls spending her childhood in historic New Orleans residential properties at varying stages of construction and renovation. These memories go hand in hand with the impacts of the Gulf Coast climate, where one is perpetually subjected to evacuation and uncertain return. The repeated act of leaving home and belongings behind led Trosclair to consider closely the haptics of memory and the psychology of place. In recent work, Trosclair expands the notion of regenerative cycles and home beyond the built environment, exploring a symbiotic relationship with the broader landscape.’’