Emerson Dorsch

Felecia Chizuko Carlisle’s solo exhibition, Matter is a Verb, at Emerson Dorsch, confronts us with the ontological paradox of material existence. Carlisle’s work resituates matter as a dynamic and constantly evolving process, as something “in the making” rather than “made.” In her exploration of the material world through the lens of science and art, Carlisle invites us to engage with the boundaries between the physical and the metaphysical, the solid and the liquid, the static and the moving. These physical properties are neither fixed nor immutable but are, in fact, always in the process of becoming.

The exhibition’s title Matter is a Verb offers a conceptual challenge to understanding the relationship between being and becoming. “Matter,” when reimagined as a verb, becomes an act—an ongoing process of formation and transformation. It ceases to be an object and becomes an event, in constant flux, never fully realized. To speak of matter as a verb is to acknowledge its inherent instability, to refuse the notion that objects are ever truly fixed. It is this dynamic, performative conception of matter that comes alive in this exhibition. Here, materiality is not something we passively encounter, but something we actively participate in—shaped by our perceptions.

Carlisle’s work challenges the divide between mind and body, subject and object, human agency, and natural forces. The materials Carlisle uses—paper, glass, wood, neon, and bison skin, are not inert substances. They are agents in their own right. This is not an understanding of material as passive, or of the artist as a godlike creator bestowing form upon it, but rather as a dynamic negotiation between multiple forces—vibrational, physical, conceptual—that together constitute a work of art.

Carlisle asserts, “My work is rooted in the idea that vibration organizes matter and, in turn, forms every ‘thing.’” Here, she implicitly calls upon the Aristotelian distinction between matter and form, an understanding that presupposes that matter in itself is inert, waiting to be animated by a formal principle. This philosophical framework, rooted in Western metaphysical thought, has long defined our understanding of materiality as something needing external intervention to give it shape or purpose. But, what if matter itself has no fixed essence, no permanent form? What if matter, as the artist suggests, is already performing, vibrating, and in motion?

Carlisle’s Paving the Plane, for instance, presents us with a surface of archival cotton rag paper, layered with graphite and acrylic, polished to reveal textures that evoke the roughness of volcanic rock. Yet this surface is not solely a mimicry of nature; it is underpinned by a mathematical system—based on the Einstein shape—that signals the infinite, non-repetitive patterns that govern both nature and culture. Carlisle’s engagement with these dualities calls into question what it means to “organize” the world. Can the process of creation, consolidating, and shaping be thought of as a form of resistance against the forces that seek to dissolve or displace that order?

What if the forces that organize matter—be it through vibration, gravity, or heat—are not external to the physical world, but intrinsic to it? This is the challenge Carlisle offers us in Neither/Nor, a towering glass sculpture in which strands of LED light and yellow sculpted glass slump over a powder-coated steel band. Glass, here, is rendered as a fluid, elastic substance—its form seemingly suspended between the solid and liquid. Carlisle’s decision to work with glass invites us to reconsider how we read and interpret corporality. The glass remains in an ambiguous, transitional state, challenging perceptions of what constitutes permanence. Here, Carlisle suggests that all material forms, even those that seem rigid and static, are subject to external pressure and are therefore in a constant state of evolution.

In the audio-visual installation Post-Horizon Song, Op.2, a circular-shaped video projection hovers over the North room of the gallery, and a dome-shaped speaker hangs from the ceiling. The installation is a multi-sensorial representation of matter in motion, part of Carlisle’s long-standing exploration of the physics of sound. The video captures cymatic patterns caused by frequencies stimulating the surface of a mixture of water and oil under colored light. The installation’s dome-shaped speaker draws a single viewer to listen to the exhibition’s soundtrack.

Alongside her video work is a conceptual sculpture comprised of a large bison-skin drum, divided into two symmetrical halves and veiled by turmeric-dyed hemp mesh fabric. Carlisle shares the drum, a gift from her mentor, Wind. Placed in this exhibition, Blood and Wind / el silencio / The Drum Is My Heart, presents the powerful potential of vibration while insisting on silence.

Carlisle’s work, then, is not merely an aesthetic experience. It is a provocation to reconsider the nature of reality. By refusing to see materiality as passive, static, or fixed she asks us to rethink the implications of subjectivity, identity, and power. Just as matter is always becoming, always in the process of transformation, so too are we.