Francis
cast and cold chiseled iron, cast bronze, carved rootball
2ft by 1ft by 1ft
2008
“In less fortunate times, my sculptures were often dictated by necessity. I made art out of the materials I could find. I used recycled wax and clay through much of my college years. My first metal casts were melted from old radiators. I originally learned wood craft on what I could salvage from construction sites and haul out of the forest. I would wrestle with the nature of the materials until I could bring about the form I had originally intended. Sculpting was a competition between myself and my medium. I removed all trace of labor from the sculpture and was left with a work completely transformed and removed from the history of its former incarnations. It was more important for me to accomplish my original formal and conceptual goals than to broaden my aims and listen to the materials. Though this past has given me an ability to work comfortably in a great range of medium, and his sparked an interest in transformation and rebirth, the interaction between myself and the m
aterials has moved from one of argument toward one of dance.
I no longer believe that stone is to be conquered or that metal is something to be forced into shape. Similarly I do not believe that the mark of the tool nor the mark of the hand is something to be polished away without first weighing its worth. On the contrary, the natural tendencies of the materials and the evidence of the processes that form them enrich my works with history that begins long before the sculptures’ completion. Though it is always enticing to leave every mark and nuance of an incomplete work in place and label the sculpture as finished, I have found that eliminating the superfluous elements and honing the form allows the poetry of process and material to speak of more than just itself. Thus tooling scars, casting flaws, and the nature of materials used augments the figure and gives rise to themes of personal complexity, fragmentation, and self-construction.
Francis perhaps more than any of my works, embodies this approach to art.”
-Seth Schwaiger
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