December 1987. Painted granite, painted steel. Dimensions: 12'h x12'w x6'd, (Painted version - 1987)
Collection: Runy Mede Sculpture Garden, San Francisco, CA.
Drastic Measures was initially created in 1984 and exhibited that year in my solo exhibition at Diane Brown Gallery in New York. The sculpture continues my exploration of stone, steel, gravity, and precarious balance, with the long sweeping steel arc and extended linear elements creating a strong sense of gesture and movement around the grounded mass of the granite. When I later wanted to exhibit the sculpture outdoors, I painted the steel surfaces to provide greater protection from the elements. What began as a practical decision also opened the possibility of using color as an expressive part of the sculpture.
This development was closely connected to my experimentation with pastel drawings during the same period. I had begun to feel that the predominantly gray palette of granite and steel needed what I described as more “color excitement,” and Drastic Measures became one of the important works in which ideas originating in the drawings moved into three dimensions. In Drastic Measures, color, line, mass, and gravity come together as active sculptural elements, extending my earlier structural concerns into a more painterly and expressive vocabulary.
December 1987. Painted granite, painted steel. Dimensions: 12'h x12'w x6'd, (Painted version - 1987)
Collection: Runy Mede Sculpture Garden, San Francisco, CA.
Drastic Measures was initially created in 1984 and exhibited that year in my solo exhibition at Diane Brown Gallery in New York. The sculpture continues my exploration of stone, steel, gravity, and precarious balance, with the long sweeping steel arc and extended linear elements creating a strong sense of gesture and movement around the grounded mass of the granite. When I later wanted to exhibit the sculpture outdoors, I painted the steel surfaces to provide greater protection from the elements. What began as a practical decision also opened the possibility of using color as an expressive part of the sculpture.
This development was closely connected to my experimentation with pastel drawings during the same period. I had begun to feel that the predominantly gray palette of granite and steel needed what I described as more “color excitement,” and Drastic Measures became one of the important works in which ideas originating in the drawings moved into three dimensions. In Drastic Measures, color, line, mass, and gravity come together as active sculptural elements, extending my earlier structural concerns into a more painterly and expressive vocabulary.
1984 original - Diane Brown Gallery solo Exhibit
