Ace Artist in Residence & Byline present — Tomorrow’s Garden by Caroline Zimbalist

With this seminal exhibition, Tomorrow’s Garden, we glimpse through a keyhole. Behind the door is an imagined, futuristic world where the overuse of plastic melted into nature and created new species of bioplastic lifeforms. An enchanted oyster lies in the ocean with aquatic creatures and flora. A hanging abstract, bioplastic jellyfish illuminates an underwater world, a forest where hybrid amphibians and fairies tend to the changed planet. Caroline questions what the future can look like in a world where nature has been altered by the overuse of plastic. She considers what new species would materialize from those synthetic lifeforms. The message that seems to emerge might not be that of hope but offers equilibrium: even as we lose plants and animals to extinction and traditions to technology, there is beauty to be found.

To bring these ideas to life, she concocts recipes with ingredients such as seaweed, cornstarch, gelatin, tapioca and vegetable glycerin. Her signature sculptures and vessels are made from biomaterials cooked on her stove. After melting them together into a unique material, she cures, colors, and molds the substance into imperfect shapes. She also repurposes old furniture and wraps bioplastic pieces around them. The soft sculptures harden over time. In Tomorrow’s Garden, Caroline creates something beautiful even as she illustrates an ominous, futuristic, plastic-like world.

Photography: Alexa Jae Photography

About –

Caroline Zimbalist is an artist and designer who hand creates  one-of-a-kind pieces using nontraditional processes and techniques. She’s studied painting, illustrating, and sculpting since she was four and earned a BFA at Parsons studying fashion. She developed an enthusiasm for avant-garde design while furthering her schooling at Central Saint Martins, London. Always interested in making her own materials and pushing color boundaries, she started stripping abstract paintings off their frames and creating garments with the idea of draping bodies in different color palettes. For the past several years she has become proficient with bio-plastics and is creating clothing, jewelry, and sculptures with this relevant textile. She molds her unique recipe of biodegradable and natural materials into striking, three-dimensional forms not just for the ecological value of the technique but for the versatility it permits. @carolinezimbalist

Byline, the culture magazine at the forefront of new media in New York, was conceived of as a place for contributors to be themselves. It was founded in 2023 by editors Gutes Guterman and Megan O’Sullivan, who have chosen the theme “art as play” for their curatorial throughline, presenting four artists for their insights into this paradox of pleasure and productivity. @bylinebyline

Ace Artist in Residence program, curated in partnership with collectives and institutions that inspire us, provides time to think and space to create. Every quarter, we invite artists across the globe to turn one of our hotel rooms into their studio for a month, then showcase the resulting body of work with the Ace community. @acehotelbrooklyn