THE LIVING INVISIBLE
ON VIEW THIS AUGUST
ON VIEW THIS JULY
THE LIVING INVISIBLE
A solo exhibition featuring:
SARA MAST
ARTIST RECEPTION:
AUGUST 14th | 6:00PM - 8:00PM
Show Statement:
The subject is the invisible — the energetic aliveness that permeates all bodies, all matter. The work begins where perception ends: in the unseen quantum fields shared by all living form, and in the more-than-human communication that surrounds us, yet which is largely forgotten. The Living Invisible moves between scales that landscape art rarely reconciles: the subatomic and the cosmic, the cellular and the geological, the microbial and the galactic.
Painting in encaustic, oil, cold wax, and pigment stick on grounds whose earlier histories remain buried yet generative beneath, Mast builds layered surfaces that function as both field and memory. Her sculptural work is made from vitrified Plasma Enhanced Melter (PEM) glass — a byproduct of plasma gasification technology that returns waste to its molecular structure, converting it into inert glass at temperatures as hot as the surface of the sun. The work's proposition is direct: that industrial waste can be transmuted into beauty, and that art can participate in the repair of a culture bent on extraction and disposability.
The Living Invisible follows Mast's touring exhibition Standing in the River, which opened at the MSU School of Art in Bozeman, MT in August 2025 and traveled to the Montana Museum of Art and Culture in Missoula, MT, with upcoming stops at the Danforth Museum in Livingston, MT (October 2026), Convergence Gallery in Butte, MT (August 2027), and the Art Museum of Eastern Idaho in Idaho Falls, ID (2028).
Sara Mast is Professor Emerita of Art at Montana State University, where she taught drawing and painting for 24 years. Her work is included in publications by MIT Press, Watson-Guptill, McGraw-Hill, and Thames & Hudson, and is held in collections including the Yellowstone Art Museum, the Holter Museum of Art, the Daum Museum of Art, 3M Corporation, Harborview Medical Center, and the One and Only Moonlight Basin.
