Matter and spirit. These two entities have a long history of being deeply intertwined, and for good reason. As we engage with the world around us, we also sense something more than what our eyes can see. What that other dimension is has been the subject of many explorations in verbal language – poetry, philosophy, metaphysics – as well as in the visual language of art. 

That other dimension is rarely visible. Finding a way to translate it into visual language has been an essential concern for both Fitzgerald and Gillman Crimmins. Matter and Spirit is a tribute to the restless shifting of light and energy. The other dimensions, other understandings present in this work are strengthened through their connections to the written word – poetry – as well as to the natural world, and to the imagination it calls us to.  

The physical material both artists use nod to the idea that matter and spirit cannot be easily extricated from each other. Gillman Crimmins recycles everyday papers. Rolling them tightly, and carefully building up layers to create new forms, these pieces attest to the latent properties of those things associated with the spirit realm. Fitzgerald's use of 23k gold recalls its early applications as a sign of the sacred. Both artists use forms that are distinctly presentational. The roundness that both rely on speak to the wider physical world, and the non-linear properties of its spirit realm. The work embodies that aspect which carries us to the delineation, and unification between matter and spirit.