K. Gretchen Greene’s work offers a visual response to and recollection of coast living and its fluctuations. Her new triptych, Underwater, captures the artist’s reflections on environmental and economic impacts on coastal communities. Welded steel and lacquer sculptural waves are poised to crash, to engulf the viewer while reflecting the movement of memories as they appear and fade away. Underwater is comprised of three panels, from which torched text and plasma cut curling forms narrate the artist’s recollections.

The intricacies of Greene’s multidisciplinary mind—she is not only a sculptor and painter, but also a mathematician and lawyer—are visually expressed by the intricacies of her intensive, artistic process. Seeking the limits of her tools and material, she heats, hammers, bends, curls, and overlaps steel. Then, with graceful sweeping gestures, she writes with fire, leaving silver, bronze, and cobalt tones to mark the passage of time.