To Move Through Stone

Visual Arts Center

Austin, TX

Exhibition Text:

The Edwards Aquifer is an underground layer of porous limestone that stores and moves groundwater across Central and South Texas. It supports the industrial, recreational, and spiritual needs of over two million people, yet its scale and hydrogeological inner workings remain largely invisible to those who depend on it. In To Move Through Stone, artist Abby Flanagan uses drawing, sculpture, and installation to trace the aquifer’s systems, study its material form, and represent its critical role in local ecologies.

To engage this hidden system, Flanagan draws upon field research in the Edwards Aquifer’s above and below-ground environments as well as her conversations with its stewards. She transforms collected materials such as limestone, water, mud, plants, and plastic into sculptures injected with rhodamine dye, a fluorescent pink substance used by scientists to trace and measure water flow. A rain gauge extending from the VAC gallery to the outdoor courtyard tracks local weather patterns, connecting the exhibition to the extreme drought and flooding that continue to deplete the aquifer’s water supply.

Across seven new bodies of work, Flanagan repurposes scientific and artistic tools, resisting a complete picture of the aquifer in favor of highlighting its fluid, ever-changing nature and the fragmented ways diverse groups perceive, protect, and give it meaning. Subtle changes in the gallery’s atmosphere further destabilize the works: gravity compresses layered sediment, humidity swells sand, and changing light patterns reveal and conceal details. In To Move Through Stone, Flanagan presents drawing as an expanded form to incorporate the methods, metrics, and emotions used across a range of disciplines to sit with the uncertainty of knowing, representing, and caring for this shared resource, which is increasingly at risk amid the climate crisis and rapid development.

Works Included:

Remote Sensing, 2026, chalk, limestone sediment, rhodamine dye, Dimensions: approx. 17 x 17 ft.

Meander Drawings, 2026, transfer pigment on paper, made with water current meter, Dimensions: variable

tract (aquifer), 2026, limestone sediment, granular material, water, and rhodamine dye in polycarbonate tube, Dimensions: site-specific

tract (Map & Key), 2025, sand, plaster, soil, rhodamine dye, wool, sponge, saw dust, thread, newspaper, linoleum, sunflower seeds, rust, pappus, bark, Chasmanthhium latifolium (northern sea oats), Ambrosiatrifida (giant ragweed), and calcium carbonate in polycarbonate panel, Dimensions: twenty-four 5 x 7 in. small tracts and one 48 x 48 in. large tract

rain score, 2025, glass, limestone sediment, rhodamine dye, rubber bands, maple table, Dimensions: site-specific

something, everything, 2026, limestone rock on loan, wood stands, Meander Drawing (transfer pigment on paper, made with water current meter), Dimension: approx. 48 x 48 in.

Well, 2025; Rock, 2025, transfer pigment on Arches paper, on maple wall, Dimension: 44 x 30 1⁄4 in. (drawings only)

It’s raining, rain is, 2025, Graphite on voile, Dimensions: 30 x 11 ft.