Monica Tinker has transformed the Hillyer Art Space into her own personal playground. Stepping into her first gallery installation, "Out of b(Order)," don't be surprised to find Tinker herself painting, sculpting or arranging within the ever-changing work.

"This is not a static piece," Tinker said. "It's always in a state of construction. It's a narrative, where I'm taking objects, arranging them, marrying them materially, creating a dialogue."

Tinker, a Maryland resident who has dabbled in printmaking, jewelry making, painting and sculpting, approached the Hillyer with the idea of creating a live studio installation in which she would come once a week and work on her ever-unfinished creations. Playing off the themes of shelter and space, Tinker has filled the gallery with various projects: spirals of thick wire uncoiled for inspection, sculptures created with kitchen tile, a small crown and throne, a bird constructed from twigs perched in the corner.

"The material I choose to use is very site-specific to me," Tinker said. "Usually it's from my home, so it's very personal. I dissect it, rework it. . . . Every material has limits, challenges, potential."

All around the space, there are delicate details that can be hastily overlooked. From a cluster of frames and paintings casually displayed in a corner to a line of black stones carefully arranged in size order, Tinker has given the utmost attention to the smallest facets of her works. Behind the scattered array is a loose system of organization.

"It's growing from a need to create order for myself," Tinker said. "Order and restraint are themes I constantly go back to."

Using materials such as concrete, wire and string, Tinker credits her South African upbringing and the inspiration from her parents, a silver engineer and a seamstress, for the forms with which she expresses herself. Juxtaposing the strength of concrete with the fragility of needles and string, her installation is full of small details, which all return back to her love of architecture and construction. Currently designing her second home, Tinker finds inspiration in the most commonplace of items, especially the most overlooked.

"I take the urban environment and respond in an organic way," Tinker said. "It's visual poetry for the human condition. I'm creating a narrative, a visual experience."

In her past forays into jewelry-making, Tinker utilized unglamorous gadgets to create wearable works of art, such as wire and nail. In her latest venture, she uses old pieces from her house, such as a mangled sewer pipe, to metaphorically discover the world.

"I want to teach the audience to look a little harder at their immediate surroundings," she said. "I use common, household things and it's more about how I look at them, how much potential there is in what we discard."

Tinker has utilized her passion for various materials and designs to define her installation. Speaking of her works as if reminiscing about old friends, Tinker creates her art with the firm belief that she is not the one controlling the outcome; rather, she says, she is merely responding to the space and various media, letting the final product create order in her self-described "chaotic" life.

"I'm working with the material," Tinker said. "It has a nature and personality. I'm building a friendship, not controlling it."

"The allusion is like walking into my sketchbook," she continued. "This is my language and I'd like to be able to re-empower people. It comes back to the process and it's going to change. I'm curious to see where it takes me."

--Stephanie Garcia (July 27, 2007)