Opening Reception: Friday, November 7, 5–7pm
Closing Reception: Sunday, January 4, 2026, 3-5 pm
This installation of paper sculptures channels the alien forms and fluid movements of deep-sea creatures to evoke the secrets dwelling in the world's most remote territories—whether in oceanic trenches, interstellar space, or the uncharted depths of our own consciousness. What profound truths can emerge from such depths when we take the time to open our minds and listen?
These sculptures emerged from the artist’s five-year dialogue with kozo papers from Japan. Each piece arises from a journey of crumpling, creasing, folding, tearing, crocheting and shaping, transforming the delicate sheets into organic, life-like, three-dimensional forms. The creases and folds hold memory and capture light and shadow to reveal new possibilities hidden within the everyday.
Cindy Stokes’ art arises from her deep curiosity about the natural world and our place within it. Throughout life she has been driven by learning and discovery, and in her art she frequently experiments with materials and processes to explore possibilities and challenge limitations.
Stokes’ first interest was in photography, which began while imaging cells and tissues through the microscope during graduate school. More recently she began making paper sculpture and installation art. Her artwork is strongly influenced by her biomedical research career that immersed her in the deep and elegant complexity of the body, and her long-standing resonance with the order and chaos of nature.
Stokes’ artwork has been featured at Leonardo art-science programs, Shooting the West, and numerous exhibitions in the USA and Japan. She lives and has an art studio in Redwood City.
