Sculpture: Inside-Out

By Bethany Peterson/nw news editor

 

The Lakeview Gallery on NW Campus is packed with sculptures from across Texas.

Artists and instructors from across the state contributed work to the Sculpture: Inside-Out exhibit, running now through April 27 in the gallery and spilling onto the lawn outside WFAB.

“The goal is to get as much sculpture as we can,” said Frederick Spaulding, NW art associate professor.

And there is a lot to be seen. More than 30 sculptures are included in the show.

Inside the gallery, Barbara Frey’s ceramic sculpture reflects some of the things 9/11 taught her.

“There are a lot of things about that event I’m exploring,” she said. “I don’t want to call it 9/11 art.”

One idea that Frey is exploring is “conferring preciousness on something not precious.”

Instead of just dumping all the rubble from the Twin Towers carelessly into a landfill, every small piece of concrete had to be carefully documented because it was part of a crime scene. It took nine months to clear the area.

“I started saving all my studio rubble,” Frey said.

Now she makes lots of pieces from clay odds and ends left over from other pieces.

The piece on display is also interesting because of how the individual parts are joined.

“All the forms are fused together by glaze,” Frey said.

Instead of attaching the parts together before firing them, Frey piles the parts on top of each other in the kiln and lets the hardening glaze bind them into one piece.

In contrast, independent artist Billy Zinser’s three pieces are more playful and lighthearted. He describes his pieces as cartoonish-looking painted sculptures.

“I want them to feel like loose, humorous objects,” he said.

The cartoon-like forms pull the forms of his abstract paintings into 3-D, he said. But there is a purpose behind his sculpture.

“This cartoon or toy is a comfortable medium,” Zinser said. “It makes art that feels comfortable or accessible.”

And it does. He creates smaller plastic versions of his work and sells them as toys.

“I love the idea of owning artwork, so I hope I’m offering something a broad range of people could do,” Zinser said.

Dalton Maroney, associate professor of art at the University of Texas at Arlington, also looked to familiar forms and ideas to create his sculptures.

Much of his work plays off the form of a boat but is literally left open for interpretation.

“It doesn’t take much to make a form suggest a boat,” Maroney said.

But his sculptures that might imply unfinished frames of canoes can also suggest other things.

“They can resemble African masks or tribal shields,” he said. “It all depends on how I let the structure be revealed.”

The boat also reflects his journey as an artist, Maroney said.

“Sometimes I make it [the sculpture] more enclosed and then rip back into it,” he said.

The boat is an interesting form to start with, Maroney said, because it doesn’t include a lot of right angles or straight lines. It also has significance to different cultures as a practical and religious object.

“It’s a rich image with plenty of places to take me,” he said.

An artist reception will be 11 a.m.-2 p.m. March 26 in conjunction with the Fort Worth Gallery Walk. Artist Talks will begin at noon.