Over the past year, my sculptural works have become a lot more abstract, but still retain some of the whimsical elements of puppetry. Being close to the Dia Beacon Museum and Storm King Sculpture Park may have influenced me somewhat. Unlike the unwieldy steel sculptures of Serra and DeSuvero, these are made out of wood, (sometimes found scraps) paint, glue, screws, and often an electric motor. They are easy to move, but are not suitable for outdoor exhibition.
When I make these, I don’t make drawings or sketches first. I work piece by piece as if I am drawing three dimensionally. I have a general shape in my head, like an old piece of farm machinery or rusty mechanical device that I recall from post-industrial Western PA. These three are Tiller, Gear and Chopper. Tiller and Gear appeared in abstrACTION, a show curated by Dara Meyers Kingsley that took place at the Arts Exchange, Westchester NY, over the summer.
Tiller, Gear, Chopper, 2010
press:
Celebrating Artists Who Keep the Action in Abstraction, New York Times
Tom Sarver 