Beth Cavener Stichter

I thought I would share some images from Beth Cavener Stichter's website http://www.followtheblackrabbit.com/.

The animalistic sculptures capture both an emotional personality and psychological tension in their proportions and gesture. A view into the human condition frozen within animal form.

The sculptures create an empathy with the viewer. You feel responsible for them - want to help them...

I couldn't possibly do them justice with words. So here they are...

 

Her Artists Statement reads:

"There are primitive animal instincts lurking in our own depths, waiting for the chance to slide past a conscious moment. The sculptures I create focus on human psychology, stripped of context and rationalization, and articulated through animal and human forms. On the surface, these figures are simply feral and domestic individuals suspended in a moment of tension. Beneath the surface they embody the impacts of aggression, territorial desires, isolation, and pack mentality.

          Both human and animal interactions show patterns of intricate, subliminal gestures that betray intent and motivation. The things we leave unsaid are far more important than the words we speak out-loud to one another. I have learned to read meaning in the subtler signs; a look, the way one holds one's hands, the tightening of muscles in the shoulders, the incline of the head, the rhythm of a walk, and the slightest unconscious gestures. I rely on animal body language in my work as a metaphor for these underlying patterns, transforming the animal subjects into human psychological portraits.

          I want to pry at those uncomfortable, awkward edges between animal and human. The figures are feral and uneasy, expressing frustration for the human tendency towards cruelty and lack of understanding. Entangled in their own internal and external struggles, the figures are engaged with the subjects of fear, apathy, violence and powerlessness.

Something conscious and knowing is captured in their gestures and expressions. An invitation and a rebuke."

 

 

 

All information & images gathered from Beth's website here:

http://www.followtheblackrabbit.com/index_main.htm

Pan and Daphnis

In Greek mythology, Daphnis (from Gk. daphne, "laurel" or "bay-tree") was a son of Hermes and a Sicilian nymph. A shepherd and flutist, he was the inventor of pastoral poetry. A naiad (possibly Echenais or Nomia) fell in love with him, but he was not faithful to her. In revenge, she either blinded him or turned him to stone. Pan also fell in love with him and taught him to play the pan pipes.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphnis)

 

(Above)
Marble statue of Pan teaching Daphnis to play the pipes.
2nd century CE. Roman copy of a 2nd century BCE Greek original.
Archeological Museum, Naples.

(Above) Pan Seducing Daphne - looks like he's about to get a sandal wrapped around his chops.

Pan and Maenad ( http://www.ancientsculpturegallery.com/ )

 

(Above) Pan Raping Goat - He gets himself about (No information found)

 

“I rave; and I rape and I rip and I rend

Everlasting world without end!

Mannikin, maiden, maenad, man,

In the might of Pan.”

– Hymns to Pan (1929)  Aleister Crowley

Appleseed: Briareos Model Kit

This must be one of the most impressive models I have seen... The finish quality of the model is superb. I would love to have seen the final tool of this before it went for mass production.

The Poseable Model Kit from Hot Toys is the cyborg Briareos from Appleseed - Ex Machine, the popular Manga & Anime. I aint read the Manga or seen the recent (2006?) Movie and I can barely recall the first feature, but I have always loved Masumune Shirow's design of the cyborg character.






http://www.sideshowtoy.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?item=6363#jpgs

Ron Mueck

There is no denying the supreme craftmanship of Ron Mueck, who without doubt stands in line with greatest sculptors of all time; Michelangelo, Bernini, Rodin... Ron Mueck.



http://blip.tv/file/94203?filename=Brooklynmuseum-RonMueckFullVersionForHighSpeedConnections559.flv



The Hyper-Realist Sculptor started his career as a modelmaker for TV and Film, notably supplying animatronics and puppets for the Jim Henson/George Lucas movie Labyrinth. Moving eventually into the Fine Arts with his Satchi commisioned piece Dead Dad.



Mueck's works are sculpted then cast in resin or sometimes silicone so that each hair can be punched into the surface. Seeing his work in print or online is fascinating but seeing them for real is mind blowing and somewhat disturbing.



















































































The Gaurdian have a great article on Ron Mueck here: http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1842696,00.html


Flickr Photo set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/themodern/sets/72157601021948061/

and for more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Mueck

Antoine-Louis Barye

The First of my artist profiles, which will focus on sculptors from antiquity to the digital age, and give a brief outline of their career and showcase thier works that fascinate and inspire me.
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First up is Antoine-Louis Barye, the French 'Romantic' sculptor whose animals studies and mythological scenes capture the energy and tension of the moment in the twisting forms of his stylized but studied sculptures.


Born in Paris, Antoine-Louis Barye (September 24, 1796-June 25, 1875) began his career as a goldsmith, like many sculptors of the Romantic Period. After studying under sculptor Francois-Joseph Bosio and painter Baron Antoine-Jean Gros he was in 1818 admitted to the École des Beaux Arts. But it was not until 1823, while working for Fauconnier, the goldsmith, that he discovered his true predilection from watching the wild beasts in the Jardin des Plantes, making vigorous studies of them in pencil drawings comparable to those of Delacroix, then modelling them in sculpture on a large or small scale. In 1831 he exhibited his "Tiger devouring a Crocodile", and in 1832 had mastered a style of his own in the "Lion and Snake." Thenceforward Barye, though engaged in a perpetual struggle with want, exhibited year after year these studies of animals--admirable groups which reveal him as inspired by a spirit of true romance and a feeling for the beauty of the antique, as in "Theseus and the Minotaur" (1847), "Lapitha and Centaur" (1848), and numerous minor works now very highly valued.

Barye was no less successful in sculpture on a small scale, and excelled in representing animals in their most familiar attitudes. Examples of his larger work include the "Lion of the Column of July," of which the plaster model was cast in 1839, various lions and tigers in the gardens of the Tuileries, and the four groups--"War, Peace, Strength, and Order" (1854).
In 1852 he cast his bronze "Jaguar devouring a Hare." Fame came late in the sculptor's life. He was made Professor of Drawings at the Museum of Natural History in 1854, and was elected to the Academy of Fine Arts in 1868. No new works were produced by Barye after 1869.
The mass of admirable work left by Barye entitles him to be regarded as one of the great animal life artists of the French school, and the refiner of a class of art which has attracted such men as Emmanuel Frémiet, Peter, Cain, and Gardet.

(From Wikipedia.)