How Did We Get Here?

April 4 to May 17, 2025

Artist’s Statement

How Did We Get Here? is a collection of sculpted prints and paintings that I made over the past seven years. As an artist with a background in physics, I believe that scientific methods tend to mirror our thought patterns at large. I extend this scientific approach to my artistic practice, where I make sense of my visual materials by creating handmade objects that are rich in information. I work with photographic compositions that are printed on paper, sometimes embellished with paintings and drawings, and then folded into geometric patterns. With this intricate process, I celebrate the everyday acts of creativity that undergird both science and art.

The work in this exhibition is drawn from three series that grew out of my fascination with how we perceive the world around us. Double Vision (in the Schweinfurth Art Center) features multi-panel pieces that evoke a fragmented experience of looking. Big Bang (at the Cayuga Museum of History & Art) channels my pandemic-era anxiety through photographs of a glitching computer monitor. Rose Window (at the Cayuga Museum) is an extended improvisation on mathematical diagrams, landscape photographs, and calligraphic drawings/paintings, where new pieces are generated from earlier works in the sequence. All three series are unified by a common visual vocabulary, but they each project a different character — austere or agitated or organic — which speaks to the contrasting architectural styles of the Schweinfurth Art Center and the Cayuga Museum.

About the artist

Werner Sun is a visual artist with a background in physics, who lives and works in Ithaca, NY. He uses repetitive manual processes to slowly transform digital images into sculptural objects that evoke the gradual accumulation of knowledge in science. Werner’s work has been featured at Garrison Art Center, Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Aon (New York, NY), Manifest Gallery (Cincinnati, OH), and the Islip Art Museum. He has been commissioned to create kinetic sculptures for Cornell University’s Mann Library and the Cornell Botanic Gardens. His essays and images have been published in The Brooklyn Rail, Interalia Magazine, and Stone Canoe. He is the 2019 recipient of the Aon-CUE Artist Empowerment Award from the CUE Art Foundation, and a 2017 recipient of a Strategic Opportunity Stipend from the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County, NY. Werner’s work has been described as “stimulating and altogether engrossing” (Ithaca Times), serving as “a reminder that art can be a reflection of the intricacies of physics, and that both belong to the universe at large” (Hyperallergic).