With Rooms by the Sea, Texas-based artist Candace Hicks has selected to use the illusionistic qualities offered by the Proxy Gallery, and employ the box as a theatrical stage: A room contains another room that seems to be a barge, bouncing on the seawater. The title sends us to fantasies of dreamy vacations, but in fact the installation is based on the well-known painting by Edward Hopper Rooms by the Sea a print of which was available for rent during the artist’s childhood.

The scene is interpreted by most viewers as evocative of solitude and isolation, but Hicks’ work could also be seen as the subtlest of the surreal with its wall of water that fills the open doorway. Hicks’ three-dimensional and mobile installation reimagines the scenario as a dreamy suite of rooms set adrift on the sea with the vastness of the water contained in a small box. Fascinated by this immensity in miniature the viewer “enters” the room only to “exit” stage right, to the sea.