Gordon Fearey

Weave of Matter
I weave six inch wide strips of painted sheet aluminum into blankets. They would look like blankets, except that I incorporate bicycles in the fabric: threading strips through the spokes and frames introduces bumps and curves in the weave, which become exaggerated as the weaving progresses and turn the fabric into an undulating or three­-dimensional shape.

I feel driven to perform every aspect of this ritual: painting the rolls of primed aluminum without aim, as if I were rain or grass subject to accident; cutting them in strips in my improvised factory; suspending bicycles with wires as if they were my surrogates, traveling in an infinitely far-off galaxy; weaving the metal over, under, over with dull repetition, introducing scratches in the color from wear and tear, but also navigating the obstacles of the bicycles the way a squash vine navigates its way to sunlight.

Each of the phases of building a Weave of Matter piece is decisive, but incremental. It’s the accumulation of decisions that makes the piece, and pushes it beyond my comprehension. The methodical process, which is loaded with accident, relieves me of the responsibility for virtuoso picture-making and allows events to occur that I could not make up.

(http://www.gordonfeareyart.com/index.php)


Weave of Matter
22w x 8h x 12d feet, sheet aluminum, bicycles, acrylic, wire, 2011

One
Sheet aluminum, bicycle, acrylic, wire, 128w x 134h x 56d inches , 2010

Road
Sheet aluminum, 2 bicycles, acrylic, 12h x 4d x 9h feet, 2011

LESLIE THORNTON

My earliest training was at Leeds College of Fine Art (1945-48) and the basic discipline of art training was life and particularly antiques drawing. My knowledge of sculpture was exhilarated by visits to the British Museum and actually handling very early Cycladic terracotta figures, simple and direct. It was an inspiring experience I could never forget.


I continued my studies in the British Museum while at the Royal College of Art (1949-51), where I became interested in European contemporary work in sculpture and painting, in addition to the emerging English metal sculpture.


Graduating from the Royal College in 1951, I started experimenting in linear drawing using steel and iron and moving freely between figurative and non-figurative. Figures enclosed within structures or emerging from assemblances, reflect the human predicament both playful and threatening.


I did not set up abstract sculpture in opposition to figurative. A piece of sculpture should be both. Figurative to the extent that it is a represenation of space. The spaces between and around objects and settings are almost as rich as the objects themselves.


Later in my career I became attracted to volume and mass using geometry and colour in welded structures in aluminium and stainless steel.


http://www.leslie-thornton.net/

ROBERT CLATWORTHY

Robert Clatworthy studied at the West of England College of Art from 1945 to 1946, at Chelsea School of Art, London from 1947 to 1949 and at the Slade School of Fine Art, London from 1950 to 1951. He went on to teach at the Royal College of Art, London from 1960 to 1972, and at the West of England College of Art from 1967 to 1971. He was Governor of St Martin’s School of Art from 1970 to 1971, and was Head of the Department of Fine Art at the Central School of Art & Design, London from 1971 to 1975.

Clatworthy was represented by the Hanover Gallery, London during the 1950s, his first solo exhibitions being held there in 1954 and 1956. Subsequent solo shows were held at Waddington Galleries, London (1965), Basil Jacobs Fine Art, London (1972), Royal Academy of Arts, London (Diploma Galleries, 1977) and the Quinton Green Gallery, London (1986). More recently he has exhibited at Austin/Desmond Fine Art, London and at the Keith H Chapman Gallery, which represents him. Among his major public commissions are ‘Bull’ commissioned by the GLC for Roehampton, London and ‘Horseman & Eagle’, originally commissioned for 1 Finsbury Avenue and currently situated at Charing Cross Hospital, London. His work is held in many public and private collections around the world.



Robert Clatworthy RA, Head IV, bronze Clatworthy’s work has also been exhibited regularly in group shows since 1952, including ‘Modern Sculpture’ at the ICA (1955), ‘British Sculpture in the ’60s’ at the Tate Gallery, London (1965), ‘British Sculptors ’72’ at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (1972) and ‘20th Century British Sculpture’, Beaux Arts Gallery, Bath (1986).

Robert Clatworthy lives and works near Dyfed in Wales.

http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/academicians/sculptors/robert-clatworthy-ra,103,AR.html

Kenneth Armitage

William Kenneth Armitage CBE(b. 18 July 1916, in Leeds, England - d. 22 January 2002 in London, Eng.) was a British sculptor known for his semiabstract bronzes.


[edit] Biography Armitage studied at the Leeds College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art in London before joining the British Army in 1939. Armitage became head of the sculpture department at the Bath Academy of Art in 1946, a year after completing his military service, and served for a decade. In 1952, he held his first one-man show in London. In 1953, he became Great Britain's first university artist in residence, at the University of Leeds (to 1956). In 1958, he won best international sculpture under age 45 at the Venice Biennale. Armitage was made CBE in 1969 and was elected to the Royal Academy in 1994.

[edit] Work Armitage's striking mature style was evident as early as 1952. Most of his works are recognizably human, but are sometimes joined with the forms of animals or furniture. Many displayed quirky humor. Armitage was also interested in Egyptian and Cycladic art and his works have an archaic flavor. He was featured in the 1964 documentary film "5 British Sculptors (Work and Talk)" by American filmmaker Warren Formal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Armitage

Anthony Caro

Sir Anthony Alfred Caro, OM, CBE (born 8 March 1924 in New Malden, then in Surrey) is an English abstract sculptor whose work is characterised by assemblies of metal using 'found' industrial objects.
Caro was educated at Charterhouse School and Christ's College, Cambridge, earning a degree in engineering. In 1946, after time in the Royal Navy, he studied sculpture at the Regent Street Polytechnic before pursuing further studies at the Royal Academy Schools from 1947 until 1952.
Anthony Caro found modernism when working as an assistant to Henry Moore in the 1950s. After being introduced to the American sculptor David Smith in the early 1960s, he abandoned his earlier figurative work and started constructing sculptures by welding or bolting together collections of prefabricated metal, such as I-beams, steel plates and meshes. Often the finished piece is then painted in a bold flat colour.
Caro found international success in the late 1950s and for a time was popular in the US. He was also influential as a tutor at St Martins School of Art, now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London inspiring a younger generation of abstract British Sculptors led by his one time assistant Phillip King as well as reaction group including Bruce McLean, Barry Flanagan, Richard Long and Gilbert and George. He and several former students were asked to join the seminal 1966 show at the Jewish Museum in New York entitled, Primary Structures representing the British influence on the "New Art".
Caro taught at Bennington College from 1963 to 1965, along with painter Jules Olitski and sculptor David Smith.
He is often credited with the significant innovation of removing the sculpture from its plinth, although Smith and Brâncuşi had both previously taken steps in the same direction. Caro's sculptures are usually self supporting and sit directly on the floor. In doing so they remove a barrier between the work and the viewer, who is invited to approach and interact with the sculpture from all sides.
In the 1980s, Caro's work changed direction by introducing more literal elements with a series of figures drawn from classical Greece. Latterly he has also attempted large scale installation pieces. One of these large pieces, Sea Music, stands on the quay at Poole in Dorset. To mark his 80th birthday, a retrospective exhibition was organized by the Tate Gallery in 2005. He was knighted in 1987 and received the Order of Merit in May 2000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Caro



Belt, 1985, Steel painted silver and brown, 238 ½ x 155 × 185 ½ cm/ 7ft 4/5 × 5ft 4/5 × 6ft 4/5ins

Black Cover Flat (1974), steel, at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

Caro's Dream City (1996), rusting steel, at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Michail Pirgelis

Michail Pirgelis was born in 1976 in Essen, Germany and raised in Xanthi, Greece. He lives and works in Cologne. In 2010 Pirgelis was the recipient of the Audi Art Award for ‘New Positions’ at Art Cologne and was also awarded the Schloss Ringenberg Stipendium. In 2008 he was the first artist to be presented with the Adolf Loos-Preis by the Van den Valentyn Foundation, Cologne. Solo shows include: ‘Aerotopie’ at Förderverein Aktuelle Kunst, Münster (2006); ‘Akropolis’ at Sprüth Magers, Berlin (2010) and ‘Aeromaritime’ Artothek Cologne (2011). Group exhibitions include: ‘Play’ at the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf (2005); ‘Schneeweiss’, a joint show with Rosemarie Trockel, at the Rohrmeisterei, Schwerte (2006); ‘Mondi Possibili’ at Sprüth Magers, Cologne (2006); ‘Quattro Stelle’ at the Villa Romana, Florence (2007); ‘Great Expectations’ at ArtLab21, Los Angeles (2008); ‘Saar Förderpreis Junge Kunst 2008’ at Kunstverein Ludwigshafen (2009); ‘Der Westen leuchtet’ at Kunstmuseum Bonn (2010); and ‘Neues Rheinland’ at Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen (2010). (website: http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2011/04/michail-pirgelis-at-sprueth-magers/#more-27397)

Telescope, 2011

original airplane parts (outside shell plate), aluminum, lacquer

262 x 396 x 30 cm

Second Aerialist, 2010

original aeroplane parts/aluminum, abraded

2 parts: 221 x 148 x 17cm and 159 x 265 x 40cm

Akropolis

original aeroplane part (overhead compartment), fabric

3 parts: 320 x 70 x 80cm, 320 x 70 x 80cm, and 270 x 70 x 80cm

Nicole Beck

Nicole Beck is a wonderful sculptor who is based in Chicago. She was educated at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL for her MFA in 1991 through a graduate fellowship, as well as at

Loyola University of Chicago, AB., with a degree in Communications in 1984. Beck also completed undergraduate studies at both the

School of the Art Institute of Chicago and

Purdue University located in West Lafayette, IN.

Nicole Beck's sculptures are mechanisms and contrivances that play with refractions in light, space and time. Her work centers around a holistic approach to art and physics, and is an exploration in perception, growth and interconnectedness.

Beck addresses both the regard for beauty and the laws of quantum physics, and gives form to well-crafted and quirky objects of poetic reflection. Abstracted apparatus and organic forms are juxtaposed as poetic metaphors for archetypes of the flow and balance of energy and life systems.

At the heart of her public works beat the rhythm and beauty of the dynamic systems found in nature and the sciences. Basic geometries balance form with ideas. The elements in her sculpture and installations fuse to create quirky and beautiful poems in space. Large scale public works are her forte. Beck is adept at budgeting, scheduling, fabricating, negotiating and collaborating on projects, and has a degree in communications as well as fine art. She constructs most of her large-scale steel works herself and fully understands fabrication methods.

Beck's repertoire of media mainly include steel and stainless, bronze, wood, glass, and landscaping outdoor public spaces.

She has also been very active in creating collaborative murals and mosaics for public spaces with diverse groups of apprentice artists recruited from the surrounding community. These projects require delving deep into all aspects of the community that can inspire and inform the artwork.

(http://www.nicolebeck.com/)

Quantaloop, 2000

Steel and Lenses

Quasarc, 2001

Painted Steel and Lenses

Jetstream, 2004

Painted Steel

Photos/Information: http://www.nicolebeck.com/ and http://www.sculpture.org/portfolio/sculpture_info.php?sculpture_id=1007876