About
Artist Statement
Sculpture is the art of bringing a moment alive and into focus. It is an idea, a transitory experience, suspended and given permanence. The artist’s concept is actualized in a medium that allows the viewer an opportunity for lingering inspection; to visit, interpret, and identify with the crafter’s perception.
My work involves the study of animate human forms, their expressiveness and grace at the moment where gravity is tenuous. I attempt to capture this suspended moment in concrete. Concrete in its cured state is also a suspension of its uncured fluid and animate nature.
Commonly, concrete is relegated to structurally rigid, geometric forms. In sculptural work, it is traditionally used as a castable, intended to mimic the properties of the media upon which a mold has been formed. Rather than use a mold, I apply fresh, wet concrete to a temporary form which defines the inside, or backside of the finished piece. I work the concrete in the open in its uncured, plastic state. This approach allows its innate fluid and textural properties to reveal themselves. By crafting the surface directly and quickly with trowel, hand, or brush, the various gravels, sands, and cements are allowed to impart their own individual qualities to the finished work. I add pigments to the base mix and also work various colorants into the fresh surface allowing the colors to define and capitalize on the immediacy of the tool marks and the responsiveness of the material, as well as complementing the expressiveness of line and overall form.
Concrete has a limited working time. Once the material is mixed, the work must be completed within hours and there is little opportunity to re-work or correct. Therefore, careful study, preparation, a clear vision of the finished work, and a free but practiced hand are required to ensure success.
I love that the mark of a sweeping, transitory hand, executed in a moment, like a watercolorist’s brushstroke, can be fixed in so permanent a record.
“The peculiarity of sculpture is that it creates a three-dimensional object in space. Painting may strive to give on a two-dimensional plane, the illusion of space, but it is space itself as a perceived quantity that becomes the peculiar concern of the sculptor. We may say that for the painter space is a luxury; for the sculptor it is a necessity.”
- Sir Herbert Read (1893-1968)