Alyson Shotz' works investigate the physics of space, light, and matter, which are the building blocks of our physical world. Shotz has had a longstanding interest in topology - the properties of space that are preserved under continuous deformations such as stretching, crumpling and bending. In addition, she is inspired by folding, a process central to biology; proteins become functional once they are folded, and they acquire their three-dimensional structure. Shotz begins her sculptures with drawings comprised of non-dimensional lines, which she then expands to create a three-dimensional structure.

Commissioned for the NYULH Kimmel Pavilion, The Moon's Eyelid is an ellipse that's folded and then stretched topologically. Deriving its title from a line of poetry by Adrienne Rich, Shotz conceived this sculpture as an ellipse, the same shape as the orbit of the moon around the earth, and the earth around the sun. Shotz's ellipse, however, is folded onto itself. Its structure forms a latticework that absorbs and refracts the sun streaming into the Kimmel Pavilion atrium lobby from windows to the North and West. The angle and color of the reflections subtly change through the day and seasons, making the rotation of the earth and its journey around the sun visibly apparent.