Artists Describing Their Art:
Berthold Neutze - Artists Statement Art from wood is either turned (pretty bowl), roughly hewed (pure artistic laziness) or from selected ugliness regarding to the choice of wood. The flashy the material the less you see the sloppy work of the artist Why do I use wood after all? Besides hard and splintery beechwood? The work is risky and tedious, demands concentration and sensitivity for the material's structure - thus a challenge for craftmanship. Together with the subtle texture and unexitedly tint of beechwood that makes it to my favourite material. Beechwood allows undisguised view towards the form language. The shiny smooth surface means a distance to ,,harsh" nature to me. The outcoming piece is a picture, not copy. The tactile dimension. There is this invitation to the spectator to touch it, to feel the inherent warmth of wood, to feel out the incorporated strings and muscles to append another dimension to his phantasy. Subject follows function. My abstract -, as well as the anthropo- and zoomorphic sculptures emerge from the curiosity what other structures evolution could find - or improve - to add another niche in nature. I mostly work without preceding drawings und start to work unintentionally; the ,,idea" evolves during the progress - the ...
Bozena Happach - My sculptures illustrate the complexity and beauty of human form in two and three-dimensional compositions. I intend to demonstrate the depth as well as the foibles of the human endeavor, along the journey of both physical and spiritual evolution. ...
Don Dougan - My work comprises both abstracted and figurative imagery executed in a variety of mixed materials, with stone being the predominate medium. Other materials used (usually in conjunction with stone) include foundry cast metals, carved and joined wood, cast and fabricated plastics, cold-worked and kiln-formed glass, cast and carved hydraulic cements, cast/formed paper, welded/fabricated metals, gilding, and found/assembled objects. The more abstracted imagery is worked in pedestal pieces, large freestanding sculptures, and in wall-mounted relief sculptures. The figurative lip series is usually presented in wall-mounted reliefs, deep shadowbox framing, and occasionally as either a pedestal piece or a large freestanding work. The most recently begun series of work comprises pedestal-sized pieces using the imagery of the ship or the boat hull. Each series or each type of work allows me to express aspects of the human condition - the more abstracted works tend to reveal a more universal emotional/rational characterization of subject matter, the lip series tends to allow sensuality, humor, and more visceral expressions, while the ship series delves into personal/cultural memories and emotional journeys. For more images and information on myself, my work, and my working methods please visit my ...
Ali Gallo - Uncovering and bringing to the surface what boils beneath creates the tension necessary for a dialog to begin between the idea and the artist and/or the art and the viewer. Finding anyway to create this tension, gouging, scratching, laying, etc in a painting or sculpture allows for deeper inspection, providing the incredible power of metaphor for the human condition....
Lou Lalli - The shaping and use of stone is a vital part of the human endeavor. The fashioning of tools and implements by stone age peoples, the votive Venus figures of the Neolithic period, cycladic sculpture of the eighth millennium BC, classical sculpture of Greece and Egypt and all the sculpture to the present indicates that stone sculpture is intrinsic to human expression. Sculpting in stone directly links me to the people of the past. The subject and ideas I choose are derived from the past thus strengthening that link. The resolutions of the technical problems are the same that sculptors in the past confronted and solved. Although modern tools and implements facilitate my work I am still doing what all sculptors and stone carvers have done in the past; chipping, abrading and polishing the stone to release the form contained therein. My ideas and subjects are borrowed from antiquity with each piece telling a story. Antiquity provides a wealth of resources for my work; warriors, the myths, Venus figures, beasts, demigods and shaman/priests are the subjects I appropriate. In executing an idea, the importance of light and shadow, through the use of negative space is a primary concern in the ...
Paul Carbo - I started messing round with wood in 1999 while still working as a graphic artist for the Los Angeles Times. We all worked on computers at that time and I was craving to do art with my hands like we used to back in the "dim time" before computers. I initially started to build small functional art pieces for children. Things like paper and pencil holders. I then progressed to larger caricatures of famous people I thought kids should be aware of like Abe Lincoln and Mark Twain, still intended as furniture for children. I would store the finished cabinets in my living room. They mingled well with my other furniture and and found I using them to store CD's,books ans such. At that point I said to myself " Why wouldn't grown-ups like this kinda thing"? I left my job at the newspaper, forged on and continued to build....
Paul Orzech - Paul Orzech Sculpture Studio Artist Statement: The heart of my artwork is expressed by the words "Classical form with a modern edge." As an artist, I feel the need to incorporate the classic concepts of the human figure from the Ancient Greek and Italian Renaissance periods, with the more message-oriented elements of today's art. My belief in the beauty and power of the raw human form is exquisitely celebrated in the classical forms of sculpture. The modern themes I treat in my art include feminism; contemporary ideas of spirituality and love; and the all consuming presence time plays in our fast-paced American lives. I feel there is a quiet strength in the combination of established classics and contemporary expression that demonstrates a smooth continuity of social history. ...