Washington DC

Michael Enn Sirvet works with what most sculptors leave out.

Holes, gaps, and negative space are the defining elements of his dimensional works — crafted from metal, hardwood, stone, plastic, and paper — and it is precisely this embrace of absence that gives his sculptures their quiet power. They draw the eye inward and outward at once, tracing patterns that feel borrowed from nature and physics, as though the work is revealing something that was always there.

For more than a decade, Sirvet built a distinguished career as a structural engineer. Then a near-death experience on a backcountry traverse of Porphyry Mountain in Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias National Park changed the course of his life. During that event he promised himself that should he make it home, he would take the pursuit of sculpture seriously. He returned home with a clarity of purpose he hadn’t had before. He joined a sculpture studio, committed himself to the practice, and in 2008 left engineering behind entirely to pursue his art full time.

That sense of purpose has never left him. Sirvet continues to seek out wild and remote places, returning to his studio with fresh observations of natural order and disorder, which he weaves together with his deep grounding in science, mathematics, and engineering. The result is work that is rigorous and intuitive, structured and open. His sculptures are held in private and corporate collections worldwide, and he is represented by galleries across the United States.

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