Remembering the Future, 2025. Hand-spliced braided polyester with knotted, braided high-tenacity nylon, approx. 10 x 28 x 20 ft. Photo by Ryan Gamma.

Even if you don’t recognize the name Janet Echelman, there is a good chance that you’ll recognize her work. Echelman, a Tampa Bay native, has received international acclaim for her massive aerial net sculptures, public art installations that explore themes of interconnectedness by merging timeless fishing knotting techniques with new-age materials. Echelman’s artistry, however, goes deeper than her monumental netted sculptures. Her solo exhibition at the Sarasota Art Museum (SAM), Janet Echelman: Radical Softness, provides a look into the different stages of her four-decade long career.

“We’re going to get a window into her studio, which is kind of organized chaos, but is really lovely,” says  Virginia Shearer, executive director of SAM. “There will be early works, frame drawings, paintings, textiles, quilts—pieces that could be hung on a wall. Janet’s known for suspending sculptures across football fields and buildings, but she’s also had this fine art practice on a smaller scale and those are the types of netted sculptures we’ll be showing.”

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication of the same name, which delves into how the concept of softness is embodied in all of Echelman’s art. “She is playing around with the idea of sculpture and drawing in space, specifically with her netted works. The netted works take on the form of the environment that they are in, swaying with the breeze and hanging with gravity,” says Shearer. “They are very sculptural, but they also have this inherent lightness to them.”

Radical Softness will also feature a series of Echelman’s brand-new cyanotypes, a photographic printing process characterized by its blue and white imagery. “Objects are laid out onto a specially prepared, light-sensitive paper before being exposed to a bright light—the exposure creates a ghost of an image on the paper,” says Shearer. “They’ll look like much of the sculptural work that she does if it were to be captured in reverse on the paper, because the paper is blue and the image comes out in white.”

Janet Echelman: Radical Softness, November 16 to April 26, 2026, Sarasota Art Museum, 1001 South Tamiami Trail, Sarasota

Remembering the Future, 2025. Hand-spliced braided polyester with knotted, braided high-tenacity nylon, approx. 10 x 28 x 20 ft. Photo by Ryan Gamma.

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