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 | SEPTEMBER 2008 - Terry Stringer, "Head Room" Leading New Zealand sculptor Terry Stringer has exhibited internationally since 1978. He is a key figure in the history of art in New Zealand, a fact acknowledged in 2003 when he received the country’s national honor, the Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit. The September 2008 exhibit at beppu wiarda gallery, titled “Head Room,” includes abstracted full and partial images of the head and human body. Humankind is expert at reading the figure and thus it becomes a vehicle to carry ideas. The most subtle message is in the face, therefore an exhibition of sculpted heads can communicate a group of ideas. “The Wrestlers,” 28 inches high, superimposes the two protangonists from Muybridge, presenting man’s struggles within himself. The viewer is rewarded with a surprise on investigating the piece of sculpture. In “Body Language,” 16.5 inches high, the subject of a hand is intercut with that of a head, as if two sculptures had been combined from fragments. The piece “Head Room,” 17 inches high, has a head defined by alternate blocks and voids, with elements of home engraved on inner surfaces. These works seek to build the figure as architecture. They conflate sculpture and architecture, both of which are structures in space. Regarding his work Terry says, “Many of these pieces relate to Folk Art which has long fascinated me. My work is a mixture of my memories and popular culture. I find that if I gift them with my own views, modeled figures indeed have life.” CLICK ON IMAGE TO SEE SHOW. |