As usual I’ve been bouncing around from one project to another in the studio. During this cold and snowy winter of ’13/14 I’ve gotten a little fixated with a series of sculpture projects that came about after doing initial studies for a more traditional figurative sculpture.
These twisted characters have me intrigued. They’ve sprung forth from a desire to start exploring the essence of what attracts me to the figure, and how to take those essential elements into a less restrained notion of what a face or a figure is or could be.
They started out as a painting and have morphed into the character at the top of the page. I have always been, and still am, attracted to line in artwork. Perhaps it is the designer in me, or maybe it’s because I grew up in a dry cleaning family and it was my job from the time I was a young boy to master the fine art of a crisp crease in a pair of trouser, a pleated skirt or a tux shirt. Whatever it is, every fine art instructor I’ve ever encountered has tried to teach it out of me.
Despite their coaching I am still attracted to the crisp edges in these works, the way the forms move you around the piece, the uncertainty of the expression, and in the case of the 3D forms, the ambiguity of the gender. I’m enjoying the evolution of this direction and am curious as to where it will lead me.