PLIGHT & APLOMB - The Figures of Sculptor David Robinson

ARTIST STATEMENT

The sheer stasis of statuary is the sculptor’s principle constraint of course. And unlike the graphic image, the sculptural figure populates a space common to our own, yet while notably resisting that hallmark of our figural human condition that is narrative. But the artifact’s spatial obstructiveness, its stasis and materiality (properties both silent and telling) give rise to a perceptual hack that is central to its aesthetic power: A work of sculpture worth its salt will sift like ballast into the cranium of the beholder - shifting visceral the centre of gravity.

Like a clipped photo, or some orphaned paragraph, a sculptural body-in-space insinuates narrative in would-be time-lines flowing fore and aft. Such fruitful figments are of course entirely outside the purview of the sculptor’s hand. So all he or she may do is draw out, embody, and sustain that beatified state and condition that is non-conclusive poise.

Turning to the much remarked angst and tension in my work, I do bear some feeling (or perhaps just habit) for moving the needle of inference toward striving and away from plight per se. As for the titular “aplomb”, the word bears a connotation of poise amid unseen forces; it posits a true and plumb-line of individual personhood amid the heaving plate-tectonics of our time.

Praxis

Concrete, silver and steel

Geist

Bronze, silver, steel and titanium

x 24 x 4.5 in

Corpus Callosum

and

Dead Reckoning

Bronze and stainless steel

Podium

Bronze, concrete and steel

40.5 x 15.75 x 7 in 2019

Façade

Bronze, steel and string

23.25 x 13.75 x 5.75 in 2019

Gravity and Grace

and concrete

x 13 x

Waveform

Bronze, concrete, steel and string

x 43 x 13.5 in

Sisyphus

Bronze, concrete and steel

x 48 x 3 in