Lydia Gladkova creates immersive rooms of monochromatic paper sculptures. 

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Freeing paper from its traditional role as a surface for art and writing, she releases its sculptural potential in an elaborate process that she likens to solving a puzzle. 

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Applying plaster mixed with glue to individual sheets of construction paper, she adds a time-based variable: she limits her actions to the interval it takes the plaster to dry. Working quickly, she bends and inverts the fast-hardening surfaces into forms. She tears these structures apart, wrestling with them as they collapse. Then she rebuilds them.  

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When the puzzle is solved, the work is finished: an ensemble of lumpy sculptures in bold primary colors. Their irregular surfaces refract against each other in a play of light and shadow that enhances the distinctive geometry of each one.