Artist Statement

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by Wesley Wofford

I see the artist’s statement as an intellectual window to the artist’s mind (as opposed to a visual window, which is the art itself). I emphasize the latter. Therefore, my intellectual approach to sculpting cannot be summed up in a tidy, unified paragraph or statement. I do, however, have many scattered thoughts on sculpture, art, life, etc. I offer these thought fragments to you as a glimpse into my window.

Sculpting has literally been a physical need for me since clay was introduced to me at six years old. My art is a by-product of this need.

My work seeks to convey a myriad of emotions. I do not presume to dictate what should be felt when my audience views each piece. I believe you can facilitate a direction with the title of the work but the experience must be the viewers.

Forget the shallow stimulation around you. Turn your mind inward. Feel something.

After 10 years of blurring the line between art and reality, I’m not interested in refinement. I want sculpture to be experienced as the act of sculpting, not just the end result of a compositional solution. I want to see tool marks and fingerprints.

Viewing good sculpture should invoke a charged emotional response, like reading poetry or listening to music.

I’m Interested in underlying psychological impulses and universal themes of humanity dealing with being both a higher conscious being, yet fundamentally, an animal.

I find the anticipation of movement more intriguing than action itself: a sculpture not in a state of movement, but one that is about to move.

My sculpture is a by-product of an action that must take place to quell the inward creative impulse and expel raw creative kinetic energy.

Fragments of anatomy are just as moving as a fully realized, highly finished figure. Fragments involve the viewer on an intimate level and inspire imaginative thinking in ways that a full piece can not.

Surface texture defines patina. Prompt the accidents to happen and let the piece take it from there.

Some say the final finish of a sculpture should not distract from the overall form. But as freckles on a face, can figurative sculpture not be finished in a way that doesn’t just accentuate form, but exists only because it is random and beautiful?

A portrait should be a work of art independent of the likeness, a sculpture you would love regardless of visage.

I am looking for something, form and the human form intermixed-lines, balance, man as the larger abstraction.

Humankind has become so desensitized and detached from the things that are most important about being alive. Life has become so much about appointments, responsibilities, etc. that our inner core is lost. In a world overwrought with constant stimulation, most of it frivolous and inane, I wanted to awaken more primal impulses in both myself and others.

I want the viewer to feel the sculptor’s presence as they experience the piece.

The regurgitation of anatomy does not interest me; rather, the translation of anatomy via the filter that is my mind. Go beyond the anatomy to invoke life and the soul within.

Making the shadows speak-finding the right light symbols to stimulate the mind and elicit a response.

I feel contemporary sculpture has become lost in one extreme or the other; lifeless anatomy reproduction or massive abstraction. To me, both are beyond any emotional reach.

Selected Quotes:

“Matter speaks of the spirit, but matter speaks louder than the spirit." - Auguste Rodin

“We’ll hunt for a third tiger now, but like the others this one too will be a form of what I dream, a structure of words, and not the flesh and bone tiger that beyond all myths paces the earth. I know these things quite well, yet nonetheless some force keeps driving me in this vague, unreasonable, and ancient quest, and I go on pursuing through the hours another tiger, the beast not found in verse." - J. L. Borges

“To laugh often and much: to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To look life in the face, always to look life in the face, and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then to put it away." - Virginia Woolf

“The goal of art is not to copy reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity." - Alberto Giacometti

“So many things I didn’t see, with my eyes turned inside. I’ve sung what I was given-some was bad and some was good. I never did know from where it came and if I had it all to do again I am not sure I would play the poet game." - Greg Brown

“Consumerism offers lots of consumer products as a substitute for real experience. Thus it offers lies instead of like and it is a bad fake world constructed upon the real world. It offers nothing but desires that can never be satisfied." - Matthew Collings

“A beautiful soul has no other merit than its own existence." - Friedrich von Schiller

“Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many; they are few!”
- Percy B. Shelley

“If you’re not afraid of dying, then you’re not really living."
Wesley Wofford

Influences:

Auguste Rodin, Gustav Vigland, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Gutzon Borglum, Daniel Chester French, Frederick MacMonnies, Emile Antoine Bourdelle, Malvina Hoffman, Henry Moore

by Wesley Wofford

The public arena holds a particular interest to me because it reaches everyone and allows viewers to experience art on their own terms. I think the greatest sculpture collections have a variety of styles and mediums as well as subject matter. A well-rounded collection subtly educates the common person about sculpture and creates an interactive timeline of the evolution of sculptural thought. A great figurative piece becomes all the more emotionally powerful when juxtaposed amongst both non-representational and abstract pieces. The experience piece is more satisfying amongst more object-based sculpture. As a result, the viewer is stimulated by the contrast of one style to the next.

The public arena is becoming dominated by extremely large, non-representational pieces and commemorative figurative works. These figurative pieces speak nothing of the human condition, and many the larger works make statements that escape the understanding of the common viewer. My aim is not to debase these pieces; they are a respectable and valid mode of expression. But they should not be the only modes represented.

My current work confronts this trend in two ways:

The first proposes to reinvigorate the figure as a modern mode of expression and address the gravity of living in an industrialized nation. Using a mode of expression that speaks to everyone (not just those familiar with the Brancusi and Duchamp-inspired movements), I aim to translate the experience of what it is to be a human animal in a secular society—exploring themes that are basic and primal as well as emotionally complex. I also aspire to produce sculpture that allows all viewers to relate and interpret it within the context of their own lives.

To create a bridge for the common viewer between the classically inspired figurative bronze and the gigantic steel sculpture is the endeavor of the second path. This sculpture:

Exists for beauty’s sake and allows the viewer to relate to the larger abstraction of the human condition.
Is dynamic and passionate but not always physically accurate, producing movement of line, form, light and spatial relations.
Presents clay as the form in motion, not necessarily the anatomy of the figure.

The ultimate goal of my sculpture is to instantly and emotionally engage a viewer. Most viewers’ initial connection comes through the recognition of a relatable form. Upon closer inspection, they see that the piece is more ambiguous than originally perceived. They notice that the forms aren’t realistic depictions, or discern textures not previously seen. This is indicative of my work. I want to draw viewers to a piece with one perception and then allow them to rediscover it—all the while retaining the initial connection.

by Wesley Wofford

My sculpture has two drastically different modes of expression. The intent of the first mode is the conveyance of relatable ideas. These sculptures tend to look more traditional and they reflect an emotional gravity that engages the viewer to feel something. The second mode presents a more abstracted interpretation of anatomy that focuses on sculpture as form yet still retains the passion of the human figure. My most recent thoughts in regard to my work are to expose the common thread between my two styles.

Throughout history, the word “sculpture” has referred to the modeling or carving of a material to represent an object, with the major emphasis being the representation of the human form. Within the last 100 years,” sculpture” has come to include a broad range of forms: performance and installation pieces, life casting, various forms of constructivism, abstract expressionism, non-objective works, etc. Most viewers today can “timestamp” a sculpture to within several decades of its creation by referencing a sort of culturally ingrained catalog that chronicles the evolution of sculpture over that last 500 years.

The challenge for a figurative sculptor in the 21st century is not only how to make your work relevant in today’s world, but to create your own language that stands the test of time. I am exploring the concept of obscuring the timestamp on my sculpture, so its origins aren’t as transparent to the viewer.

“Reawakening” is one example of this concept. I have two different finishes for the bronze editions. One is a very antiqued/weather worn patina that could place it within the first half of the 20th century. The second finish is a red enamel that brings it closer to the end of the 20th century or beyond. By altering the finish, you invariably remove the decade or art movement in which it seemed to be created.

I am also exploring this concept on a larger scale within my entire body of work with two sculptural styles. “Comprehension” is an example of my more traditional style, whereas “Yin” and “Yang” are more modern, abstracted compositions. When exhibited together, they blur the timestamp of when they were produced, both within the context of humanity’s existence as well as within my own evolution as an artist.

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