Figuratively Speaking

Curated by sculptor Neil Goodman, the exhibit displayed the work of four artists who address the human form, each in a different manner. Martha Grannon exhibited “Entrapment,” a construction made of bronze, steel, wood and coffee. Her sculptures in the exhibition were concerned with and raise questions about the contradictions between objects, their implied usefulness, and the destructive forces incurred on the environment by human functions. The scale of the work directly related to the proportions of human beings. The sculptures alluded to the whimsical and absurd, with the superficial and profound uniting to form qualities, which unsettled the viewer. Huey-Chu Lau-Chung‘s work combined fragmented sculpture with lithographs of the human form. Her lithographs were formed by directly using her body impressions on lithographic and etching plates. The viewer was invited to penetrate the surface of the print, seeking the internal structure of the body. Lau-Chung’s work evoked a sense of wonder and immorality as well as an awareness of the ephemerally of the human condition. Nina Levy ‘s work explored what figurative representation in sculpture can do- formally, culturally, psychologically and politically. She investigated “conventional forms and formal conventions” of three dimensional representations of the body and parts of the body. Levy’s work focused on the contemporary meaning of figurative sculpture in relation to its meaning to the recent and distant past. The work of Paul Shore articulated concerns for memory, continuity, sexuality mortality, and evolution and the ever-present offering of choices in our lives. His representation of the figure evolved in one case from arms to bones with reference to the historic use of bones as either weapons or tools and choices implied therein. The object of a bone and the choice it represents carried his work to the “Rattle” series, using the bone as human personification.