Sinner Saints

The clay heads in the Sinner Saint series are often portraits, and the rigid, constructed chairs are impregnable surrogates for the subject’s more vulnerable body.  The architectonic steel structures provide visual and conceptual contrast to the biomorphic forms modeled in clay.  The metaphoric potential of portrait heads was stimulated by my interest in Renaissance portraiture, specifically work by the della Robbias.  A major source of inspiration in my work is the 14th century monastery outside Florence, Certosa del Galuzzo.  This monastery’s Great Cloister is ringed with 66 portraits (majolica tondi) of saints and prophets by Andrea and Giovanni della Robbia.  The Cloister’s grand architectural space is rendered intimate by the serene depiction of the human image transcending torment.

The human body is a central theme in art across culture and time.  The 20th century is known more for the development of abstraction.  Realistic treatment of the human form stubbornly persisted in the margins of the last century.  The antipathy of the dominant artistic stance toward rendering the body provides a fertile ground to investigate as our culture redefines humanness in an increasingly technological environment of the 21st century.       

As idea and image, the human head epitomizes self-consciousness.  In my totemic forms, the malleable clay surface of the head records traumatic force more psychological than physical.  Mental fortitude essential for survival is reflected in the frozen, stoic visage.  Supporting the head, a functional chair references the b