Gallery - Twelve Sculptors from Maine to Florida. One Incredible Show.
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Gary Gresko - NC
In our world today we send signals through the air to form all types of communication. Transponder starts as a solid pipe on the bottom and then seems to break off and float up, or is it coming down and forming a solid? I enjoy a sense of movement in my work, even though it’s completely stationary.
Robert Winkler - NC
My works begin as ideas, based on form, volume, and balance. At each stage of development, the exploration of light and shadow and the push against the force of gravity describe the tension of human experience, the effort of breaking free versus the pull of the familiar.
As a sculptor, my objective is to find infinite variation within a common vocabulary of forms, creating dynamic, unwinding gestures through the use of repetition and incremental gradations. Without so much as a single curved cut I am able to achieve serpentine, animated shapes that engage the viewer with their power and illusion of movement.
The intent in Winding Out, as in all my work, is to use movement to engage the public. As people walk past and around it, they are offered a different view from each angle as it appears to move and change form, while the negative space that is integral to its design creates an additional dimension through the movement of light and shadows throughout the day.
Ira Hill - FL
I like to create in stone and metal with the aesthetic and activity of graffiti. I feel new urban aesthetics have yet to be explored in three-dimensional timeless materials. Graffiti is seen as a sore upon society, but the action of individual mark-making dates back to prehistoric cave paintings and is the epitome of free expression. By utilizing durable materials within the graffiti paradigm, my works invite others to leave their mark upon my sculptures. This action breaks the sanctity of the art object and truly makes the work public, giving it life and allowing it to change while also enduring time. Instead of some compositional arrangement in steel or stone to be maintained in its original beauty, I seek to create public works that allow anyone to alter the surface. As the times and people change, so does the artwork, as if it is possessed by the people and space it inhabits. It is this interactivity of allowing sculpture to be affected by other peoples’ energy and enlivening the work that I find engaging.
Charlie Brouwer - VA
It is in our Constitution, and in our hearts and minds; but what is it? This guy is off to find it. He carries his home wherever he goes because he knows that it is related to the source of his happiness, and that it will help him recognize his destination. I make these figurative outdoor sculptures out of locust wood‑-one of the hardest and most naturally weather resistant woods in the world. I use deck screws to fasten pieces of tree trunks and limbs together with milled lumber. This combination reminds me of how we are part nature and part our own invention. I've been focusing on the figure to explore gestures that can be metaphors-- people doing one thing that can suggest other things.
David Boyajian - CT
My sculptures in the Dancing Milkweed Series are fabricated from steel; the sculptures are a poetic narrative depicting the scattering or diaspora of seed forms in nature. Seeds are designed to travel and regenerate. People, like seeds, travel and act in similar ways. During times of great conflict or natural disaster or personal timing, new options become available and things move. The Dancing Milkweed Series is about timing, releasing , holding on, and letting go.
Hanna Jubran - NC
If a goal is sought either consciously or unconsciously in the form of a work of art, one must solve innumerable problems and make innumerable decisions in order to achieve that end. One of many decisions I have made is maintaining and preserving the natural quality of the materials I work with. My work addresses the concept of time, movement, balance, and space.
Balance point three is the point along an object's length at which there is equilibrium in full, and this could be mental or emotional stability. This sculpture is a tribute to Constantin Brancusi, who I admired as one of the greatest sculptors. The process I utilized for creating these sculptures was direct cutting into a block of sand. I cut layers to produce the open lattice-like patterns. My latticework represents the crystallization of nature’s elements and minerals. It represents the natural process of growth and distribution--the control as well as the freedom. The power of these forms in cast bronze comes from their existence in nature.
Bill Wood - VA
In sculpture as in life, the High Road is easy to spot. But sometimes it can be a bumpy ride—some will find it easier to go around or under it than to take the "high road."
Jim Gallucci - NC
I often use the format of gates and archways in my sculpture. This allows interaction with the art and is an "entry" for the public to embrace art. Flutter Gate II evokes hard beams reaching up and over to become fluttering pages of steel touching the ground.
I enjoy creating sculpture that relates to historic people, places, and events. I believe that art is the physical manifestation of an idea or event that calls forth an emotional response from the viewer. It speaks to us, and touches a chord deep within us. Good art challenges us, makes us feel righteous, moves us, soothes us, heals us, and brings us peace.
Ray Katz - MI
I have worked in many mediums, but metal remains my passion because of its strength, malleability, and inherent beauty. I combine geometric and organic elements to create compositions that convey the kinetic energy implied in my work. I use the abstract manipulation of form and shape in space to create visual balance, using rhythm, action, and movement. Color has become a prominent aspect of my recent work. Color integrates and emphasizes the structural organization of the elements. The implied energy of my compositional structures has become a hallmark of my work and is a metaphor for an evolutionary process that I associate with human experience. Through the creative process a hierarchy of elements become symbols for ideas that are a tribute to the transcendental experience we all have in common, and in the transcendent experiences inherent in life’s journey.
Todd Frahm - NC
Basin and Range borrows its title from a book by John McPhee. In the book, McPhee reminds us that “the summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.” Pairing the immutable properties of stone with the dynamic fluidity of marine life, I aim to start a quiet conversation about time.
Anne Alexander - ME
The driving theme of my work is humankind’s spiritual and physical connection to the natural world. The organic iconography used in the sculpture suggests themes relating to biological and human life--germination, growth, cyclic changes, and regeneration. The nature-based imagery serves to connect the viewer to the natural world and to enhance one’s appreciation and observation of biological forms within one’s surroundings. Scale is also a crucial component. By creating forms that seem to be enlarged, the viewer becomes aware of his/her size in relation to nature.
I scavenged the raw material for Accretion after a fierce windstorm that took place in Southern Maine several years ago, causing our neighborhood to lose power for several days. A large cedar tree fell in front of a home, up the street from where I live, and the owner was happy to gift a section of the trunk to a local sculptor. I worked on the carving of this large log over a period of three years, letting the knots in the tree suggest the final forms.I believe that art is the physical manifestation of an idea or event that calls forth an emotional response from the viewer. It speaks to us, and touches a chord deep within us. Good art challenges us, makes us feel righteous, moves us, soothes us, heals us, and brings us peace.
Mike Roig - NC
Last year, 2013, was unusual for me in that it was so dominated by a couple of large commissions for the North Carolina Zoo. They swallowed up a good deal of the year's productive months, leaving little time to simply explore the call of random ideas that I depend on to fuel new ideas. As I was just finishing the last install a filmmaker friend of mine, Nic Beery, came to me with a proposal to film the making of a piece from beginning to end. I suggested that if we were going to all that trouble it should be something impressive, and so we began. Twist of Fate’s inspiration was thus no more or less than the desire to make something grand for no particular reason; to take some good steel and make it move in the wind. Nic’s short film, an entrant in the first annual Vimby Film Festival this year, can be seen at: http://beerymedia.com/a-man-of-steel-screens-in-los-angeles. The Bull City Sculpture Show is this piece’s maiden voyage into the wider world.