Two of Hsu’s carpet paintings, pond-love and grasshopper hang on adjacent walls in the viewing room. These works depict green-hued forms that exist somewhere between the material and ethereal realms.

pond-love began as an image of a spiral, which then transformed into the ripples of a pond surface disturbed by a hand dipping into the water. A figure appears, looking not only at its own reflection in the murky pond, but also past it. The composition is derived from Pierre Klossowski’s work, Roberte face au miroir, however in Hsu’s horizontally-oriented take, Klossowski’s mirror is replaced by the pond. In grasshopper, two froglike forms crouch, one leaping over the other’s back. Working with carpet for the past three years, Hsu is drawn to the way it absorbs ink, dye, and thick acrylic. Unlike most traditional painting surfaces, carpet allows the various media to fuse together, creating one evenly textured surface.