or – We Are All Connected

TreeManSk_yManAliv_eSculpture is usually made up of physical objects. Whether stone, steel or bronze it has a 3 dimensional substance. The challenge is to bring something more to this physical form. Art must open out and fill our hearts, whether with emotions, thought or spirit. With a drawing this might seem easier. The fragile line, the gentle glow of a watercolour, there is already delicacy saying I am an object in the real world, but I am also pure thought. With heavy solidity, sculpture has a particularly tough job saying ‘I am mere thought’.

AllFigPag_eDrawing is the beginning of everything. And so let’s begin with a line floating on a thin sheet of paper. Hold it up and light filters through it. It’s lightness and transparency is an inspiration.
So if a sculpture grows from this, maybe it can keep that openness. Take a drawing of a tree, it is made up of simple lines. If these lines are cut in a thick piece of metal, it becomes solid and at the same time transparent.
And so, a sculpture can be both heavy and still let the sky through.

Randy Klein angel

 

Family Tree is an exhibition of sculpture and prints informed by the thought that we are all connected. It is intended as a reminder of what we have in common. And with the rising tendancy to build walls and isolate ourselves, maybe a contemporary significance.

The sculptures are open, transparent. Despite their great size, they remain light. They have kept the delicacy of the drawings and prints where they begin.

 

FamilyMan_peep2eAnd why the tree?
Well, it is in our similarity to trees that we can recognise that we are simply organic beings. We are joined like leaves on branches, with our roots unified in the our mother, the earth.
We recognise our veins of oxygen filled blood in the meandering of branches. Our children like so many leaves. The branches remind us of arms reaching for the sky.

And why cathedrals?LeftPlinth_2e
Where better to place art which insists that we are all one, than a house of worship. The windows which colour the light as it fills the great open spaces. Simplicity of a large open space, room to stop and open ones heart to a spiritual thought.

We are all connected. We come from a heaven which is filled with stars, whether we find a God there or not.

Family Tree opens at Portsmouth Cathedral Easter, 2017, and simultaneously at Jack House Gallery, Portsmouth. It will then travel to Rochester Cathedral in August, and hopefully points beyond.