April 1989. Wood, bronze. Dimensions: 85 × 12 × 8 in (216 × 30 × 20 cm). Collection: Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL, gift of Murray Bring and Kay Delaney.
Strange Fruit VI, 1989
Strange Fruit VI continues the series while eliminating stone entirely. By this point I had cast a number of the vessel/pod forms in bronze and was creating unique but related variations by changing the bronze base block or support to which each was attached. The elongated, opening form suggests a fruit or seed pod—something like a pea pod—while also carrying the organic, bodily and vessel associations that were becoming increasingly important in my work. In my later writing I described Strange Fruit III and VI as suggesting “fruits of labor” from the studio, with forms carrying simultaneous male and female associations connected to ripeness, production, and reproduction.
In Strange Fruit VI, John Van Alstine brings together industrial and organic materials to explore tension, balance, and metaphor. Cast bronze forms—reminiscent of tools or bones—are fused with raw steel and wood, evoking both the weight of labor and the fragility of memory. Part of a series, Strange Fruit VI draws its title from the haunting protest song made famous by Billie Holiday, adding a layer of historical and emotional gravity. While not a literal illustration, the work resonates with themes of violence, rupture, and reckoning. The combination of hard, forged metals and warm, organic wood suggests a confrontation between human-made power and natural form. Strange Fruit VI becomes both an object and a metaphor, inviting us to consider what is suspended, what is held, and what is ultimately at risk of falling. (<From Ringling Museum Exhibit text panel).
April 1989. Wood, bronze. Dimensions: 85 × 12 × 8 in (216 × 30 × 20 cm). Collection: Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL, gift of Murray Bring and Kay Delaney.
Strange Fruit VI, 1989
Strange Fruit VI continues the series while eliminating stone entirely. By this point I had cast a number of the vessel/pod forms in bronze and was creating unique but related variations by changing the bronze base block or support to which each was attached. The elongated, opening form suggests a fruit or seed pod—something like a pea pod—while also carrying the organic, bodily and vessel associations that were becoming increasingly important in my work. In my later writing I described Strange Fruit III and VI as suggesting “fruits of labor” from the studio, with forms carrying simultaneous male and female associations connected to ripeness, production, and reproduction.
In Strange Fruit VI, John Van Alstine brings together industrial and organic materials to explore tension, balance, and metaphor. Cast bronze forms—reminiscent of tools or bones—are fused with raw steel and wood, evoking both the weight of labor and the fragility of memory. Part of a series, Strange Fruit VI draws its title from the haunting protest song made famous by Billie Holiday, adding a layer of historical and emotional gravity. While not a literal illustration, the work resonates with themes of violence, rupture, and reckoning. The combination of hard, forged metals and warm, organic wood suggests a confrontation between human-made power and natural form. Strange Fruit VI becomes both an object and a metaphor, inviting us to consider what is suspended, what is held, and what is ultimately at risk of falling. (<From Ringling Museum Exhibit text panel).
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