Kristan Marvel Bronzes at Warner Center

THE ART ART PROJECT with Curator Jeff Phillips

is presenting Kristan Marvel in  CONTEMPORARY BRONZE  show.

“CONTEMPORARY BRONZE”

July 15, 2011 – September 15, 2011

Kristan Marvell

Opening Reception
July 30th, 2011   5-8pm

SCULPTURE @ THE PLAZA GARDENS

WARNER CENTER
21st Century Plaza
6301 Owensmouth Ave
Woodland Hills, CA 91367

THE ART OF KRISTAN MARVELL

Kristan Marvel’ s sculptures derive from a technique, which he developed and has worked with over the last twenty years, that he calls spontaneous carving. His  bronze sculptures begin as monolithic chunks of Styrofoam. As a stone carver has marble, Marvell has Styrofoam. The sculptures evolve as Marvell pulls and  manipulates large hot wires through massive blocks of Styrofoam. This process   allows for the improvisational removal of material and produces a unique visual    vocabulary. Also, Styrofoam, a material devoid of sensuality, an industrial    emblem, is in a sense corrected and made sensual as it progresses towards its  transformation into bronze.
Through this visual vocabulary Marvell explores the confrontation between the  natural, the organic, and man’s manipulation and reconstruction of the world.
On the most obvious level, the natural landscape is used as a point of inspiration, a visual ode to the raw power of its geological beauty. The work acknowledges and utilizes nature’s ability to elicit emotional transcendence. However, the sculptures are not replicas of natural formations. As a sculptor, Marvell, is interested in thematic or formalist concepts such as the relationship between mass and density, or volume and spatial balance. He likes the enigma of creating sculptures where mass is levitated in unusual ways, where unwary fragility is able to bear great weight. By way of modernist formal concerns the work references the concept of man’s transformation of nature through the intellectual event of manipulation.
As the eye wanders the sculptural planes, there is a sparseness, a focused control of surface and texture, in which the hand of the artist is evident. In that organization of space, a thoughtful and heart felt integrity emerges, imbuing the sculptures with emotion and grace, reaffirming the power of the object.

by Nicholette Kominos

For  The Art Chronicle