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| Sep 09, 2010 - 02:28 PM |
Queen City News - Helena's FREE Weekly Newspaper |
Helena, Montana |
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During the past 38 years, my ceramic sculptures and sculptural teapots have explored the complex environmental, political and economic impacts of contemporary human civilization upon the ecological and spiritual condition of our planet, and the quality of life of individual human beings. I present these concerns by visually manipulating and juxtaposing various objects, images and symbols to create narrative sculptural works which stimulate viewers to examine their own feelings about these issues.
My most recent sculpture, "All Nations Have Their Moment of Foolishness," is a wall mural approximately four feet high and five feet wide. It consists of 344 separate, unglazed earthenware tiles, each slightly smaller than three inches square. The tiles are fired in sawdust-filled saggars (refractory clay boxes with lids) to achieve a wide range of gray shades from pure white to jet black, with random mottled variations on the surface of each tile due to anomalies in the firing process.
"All Nations Have Their Moment of Foolishness" depicts a closely cropped face of George W. Bush. This particular image was chosen not to ridicule but to capture some essence of the man–it impressed me for its lack of expression or emotion and the visually prominent dark irises. (I have tried to imagine, in vain, what is occurring behind them.)
As the viewer approaches the piece for a closer examination, the highly detailed, individual tiles dominate. Relief images impressed on the tiles include buildings and cities demolished by aerial bombardment, the rubble of bricks and charred beams with occasional skeletal remains, nuclear mushroom clouds, the now infamous image of the hooded prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison, barbed wire, bombs falling, and additional images of war and destruction, including the screaming horse from Picasso’s great painting, “Guernica,” which has become one of the great anti-war icons in the history of art. I have also included some of the more recognizable images from my past works, which also pertain to our many human follies, such as the “cube skull” icon, dice, brain and heart tissue, wooden crates, ears, etc. As a final ironic twist, I have added a few tiles which depict the feet of Christ, a relief I carved based on a detailed view of Michelangelo’s “Pieta.” This latter image is intended to reflect on the self-proclaimed “War President” as an equally self-proclaimed devout follower of the “Prince of Peace”.
Thus, the piece operates on two different but interconnected levels: from afar, the composite photographic image, which is a sum total of its 344 separate parts, and from a closer, more introspective viewpoint, in which the implications of the fragmented images on each tile are related back to the whole. The complexity of the piece, and these opposing scales–first macro, then micro–imbue the work with a sense of diametric opposition and lead the viewer to an intended conclusion.
I am asking questions in my art that I intend to be directed toward everyone, not only those who are practitioners and followers of the contemporary arts scene–the choir, so to speak. It is my desire that my work be accessible to the average person, the
non-art-world-insider. Many of these “everypersons” may disagree with my sentiments, but few will misinterpret my intended message. If the piece only provokes a spirited and meaningful dialogue, then it has accomplished more than our mainstream (read: collaborative and propagandistic) media seems capable of these days. Art’s greatest value is to touch people in profound ways, in ways that can even, on occasion, change lives.
After nearly four decades of creating ceramic sculpture in the realm of social commentary, I have come to the following conclusion: to be effective, art that conveys social/political commentary should be, first and foremost, visually and aesthetically strong. If a work of art isn’t well-conceived and -executed in all of its myriad components, both technical and conceptual, it fails aesthetically and will lack the power to hold an intelligent audience’s attention, let alone challenge that audience to ponder significant questions.
Ultimately, my current art works are about lessons heard, but not heeded, during the 20th Century, and how these ignored lessons will affect this new century and the human species’ ability (or inability) to survive the next 100 years. My work is a visual plea for sanity. It’s really quite simple.
(Richard Notkin is a studio artist who lives and works in Helena. His newest art works, including “All Nations Have Their Moment of Foolishness,” were recently in a one-person exhibition at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery, www.elizabethleach.com, in Portland, Ore.)
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