How do you understand being? Is it a state of mind or state of existence? What does it mean to be a human being? Curator Gülnar Babayeva set out to answer these questions and more with her recent second invitational sculpture exhibition at the Art Society of Kingston “State of Being,” featuring 16 Hudson Valley-based sculptors and artists.

Babayeva initially studied for her bachelor’s in American studies at the Azerbaijan University of Languages in Baku and was drawn to art when she first came to the Hudson Valley in 2008 to work for a special-needs camp. Due to an American host family who recognized her artistic inclination, she started 2 associate degrees — fine arts and advertising design & graphic technology at SUNY Ulster in 2010. Since then, she has earned the State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence, and the 2022 Individual Artist Grant from the New York State Council on the Arts to pursue the arts locally.

“In my 3D design class, I discovered that by nature I am a sculptor,” Babayeva said. “It’s like finding one’s superpower!”

After graduation, she went to the Woodstock School of Art to practice observational figurative sculpture, and in 2015, founded Caspian Müse Studio. She has been curating art, photography, and creative images “for a long time as a hobby, gallery volunteer, and as part of my designer work … my main focus is to bring local sculptors together under one roof and attempt to cultivate a community.”

“State of Being” was inspired by Babayeva’s desire to see more sculpture exhibitions in local galleries and to bring together sculptors in different stages of their careers, backgrounds and styles. Another goal was to “attempt to understand through logic and insight what we, human beings, are and why we are here on earth terrarium with no real plan or direction.”

Featured sculptors included Isaac Abrams, Gülnar Babayeva, Elissa L. Bromberg, Jackie Fisher, Karen Jaimes, Sophi Kravitz, Alex Kveton, Benedicte & Jerome Leclere, Iain Machell, Erika Kari McCarthy, Shirley Parker-Benjamin, Francisco Rivera, Yvonne Rojas-Cowan, Aleksandra Scepanovic and Stefan Tur.

Babayeva included her personal work in the exhibit, such as her sculpture “€0ST 0F £1V1NG (Cost of Living), 2024” depicting a silhouette of a constrained being fully covered in wrinkled cloth and finished in metallic graphite. She questions, “Why did we, as a collective, accept and allow the imposed arbitrary rules that limit our human experience, for the sake of resources that are being concentrated in the hands of a few, when in reality abundance is the way of nature?”

Jaimes’ “Collateral Damage, Maya Descendant, Guatemala 2019-20”, shows a woman cut in half, meant to represent human atrocities. According to Jaimes, “This fictitious mother, who perished scrambling over the barbed-wire wall, symbolizes the unaccounted immigrant deaths that occur each day.”

Some of the sculptures depicted physical states, such as Klevton’s “Reclining Figure,” made out of aluminum. Kveton, who studied sculpture and industrial design at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague and currently lives in Saugerties, finds that inspiration is all around.

“I was happy with [the sculpture]. Because every sculptor, from time to time makes a reclining figure,” he said, “I have more inspiration than I am physically able to produce.”

For Babayeva, Kveton’s sculpture asks questions about AI, specifically AI that embodies a physical form and could potentially be added to the workforce. In Kveton’s piece, Babayeva sees, “The sense of fragility of a being and strength of a mechanical entity, unified at once.” This raises the question: If AI can or will develop the capacity to feel, and if that means it will become a being or assert itself as one — and what implications does that have for humanity?

Other sculptures took a more interpretive approach. For example, Sophi Kravitz’s “The Watcher” depicted an anthropomorphic, bunny-like fictional creature made of plastic. Kravitz’s Instagram says, “She can manipulate time, pausing, rewinding events, or fast-forwarding through moments … The Watcher is both judgment and forgiveness, reminding us that every action has consequences that resonate through time.”

Some sculptures explored the sentimental facets of human existence, such as Shirley Parker-Benjamin’s mixed media sculpture “Ancestral Reflection,” which included artifacts organized together on a slate. Stefan Tur, on the other hand, incorporated an American flag etched on copper in his piece “Americana.”

Tur, who is French, Ukrainian and American, said, “America is the ultimate state of being as an artist, being the compilation of all worldly cultures in one state, one American state … I am what I am,

an American, Ukrainian and French.”

Other abstract sculptures by Iain Machell, using cherry wood, paper and Danby marble explore themes related to the unknown, through both the physical creation of the statue and inner discovery.

One of the public favorite’s, according to Babayeva, was McCarthy’s installation “Murmurations, 2024” with an accompanying audio by David Bird. This sculpture, which hung from the ceiling to the wall, used horned chestnuts, copper wire and sound to evoke the motion of birds, symbolizing the safety of unity.

Babayeva described the public reaction as “positive and elevating,” with strong attendance at its opening on Dec. 7, and closing on Jan. 26. For Babayeva, her personal concept of being is to be “mostly feeling trapped inside existence with nowhere else to go.”

“I see it as a limited conscious being at the mercy of an all-encompassing consciousness, where it is clearly trapped in a time loop … but why?” she said. “I have yet to find out.”

Babyeva can be found on her Instagram, @caspianmuse, or her website, gulnarbabayeva.com