Dual by Charles Parson.
I deal with connections. This sculptural work developed approximately 12 years ago is based in a stylistic approach most generally categorized as “constructivist” in its visual language; or, how things connect. Using the materials, tools, and techniques so commonly seen in the infrastructures of architecture, bridges, and the physical structural underbelly of our daily world, I assault to develop a metaphor and symbol in this work. This is of a framed, individual space, presented with two life-size vertical shafts that together create a tension and focus on the central, seemingly empty space in between them. This creates a very quiet, contained space.
Conditioned in this space is a small, delicate, visual, and physical fragile phrase made with a shaft of glass, set on its edge. At certain times of the day, the edge of this glass is lit by the sunlight, giving off a vivid green glow that causes one to relook at this area yet again, contemplating. The placement of this form is made on top of an abbreviated axis of circular painted steel that is revealed immediately under a heavy plate. This thinnest position on top of a metal box-like form. This is my symbolic approach to placing the individual’s place in our culture; on a pedestal. The abstraction of this symbolic statement gives rise to multiple associations, including a roman numeral II, or a tuning fork, both with the gestalt of the forms on both sides giving rise to result in the middle, in the nothingness of this negative space.
By exhibiting this work in an exterior setting, the random action of the sun striking the edges of the glass restate the use of green as a symbol of life, drawing from the exceedingly refined regional sense of what color is and conveys in the aesthetic of the great Western landscape. This green, in these occasional lit moments, further activates this lit shaft of singular space in this sculptural work.
The Western aesthetic that originally drew me out to the great American West in the early 1970s still resonates with me. This sculpture is a somewhat reminiscent image of a singular totem of sorts; vertically placed in its miniscule scale, on the edge of the vast, seemingly empty space the horizon line still creates, a visual melody of reflection and contemplation to me. The poetics of this work rely on that viewing.
I invite you; come back again, especially in the late evening, just as dusk provides the darkening backdrop of this pure white shape, floating alone in an open sea of a solid plinth; earth.
More of my work can be seen at www.charlesparson.com.
