What happens when we wilt? Montpelier artist Alisa Dworsky examines the biological process with “Phase Change,” a solo show at Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro. Delicate watercolor-and-ink studies of flowers show blooms as they lose their buoyancy, drying out and curling over but gaining dimension as they do. Her “Closed Loop” drawings ponder the transformation through abstraction, borrowing the bouquet’s changing colors in lines that seem to trace patterns of circulation as they hang on for a while and then stop. Her biggest and most direct experiment, the installation “Phase Change 1,” is a 10-foot-tall bell of nylon fabric, yellow and orange like a daffodil, hanging from the ceiling and counterweighted by water. As the liquid evaporates, the piece slowly collapses onto the floor. The works, Dworsky says in her artist’s statement, address one of summer’s hard truths: “the desire to preserve something of the garden, and the failure to hold a moment of bloom.”
‘Alisa Dworsky: Phase Change’ On view through July 26 at Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro.
This article appears in July 15 • 2026.
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