Forwarding: Lenses
Forwarding: Lenses (I-XI), 2016, alpha gypsum polymer
Lens I: 242, 2016, alpha gypsum polymer, 4 3/4 in x 2 1/4 in x 1 9/16 in
Lens II: 162, 2016, alpha gypsum polymer, 5 1/4 in x 4 1/4 in x 2 1/8 in
Lens III: 72, 2016, alpha gypsum polymer, 4 3/8 in x 6 1/4 in x 3 7/8 in
Lens IV: 99, 2016, alpha gypsum polymer, 7 in x 5 1/4 in x 2 1/2 in
Lens V: 123, 2016, alpha gypsum polymer, 9 1/16 in x 7 1/8 in x 4 1/4 in
Lens VI: 45, 2016, alpha gypsum polymer, 4 3/8 in x 1 3/4 in x 1 7/8 in
Lens VII: 239, 2016, alpha gypsum polymer, 6 3/4 in x 5 in x 2 in
Lens VIII: 253, 2016, alpha gypsum polymer, 6 in x 3 1/4 in x 1 3/16 in
Lens IX: 294, 2016, alpha gypsum polymer, 8 1/8 in x 6 1/4 in x 2 1/2 in
Lens X: 215, 2016, alpha gypsum polymer, 8 3/4 in x 5 5/8 in x 5 1/8 in
Lens XI: 203, 2016, alpha gypsum polymer, 5 3/8 in x 3 1/4 in x 3 in
Forwarding: Lenses is the second of several Forwarding projects. All are based on a set of 306 shapes drawn by Rachel Blair Greene in the late 19th-century and which fit together to make up her Crazy Quilt, now in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum. Whereas Forwarding I-XI (and its progenitor Correspondence) focus on the flat shapes and the quilt itself, Forwarding: Lenses are hand polished resin-infused plaster sculptures which embody my sense that an artwork can metaphorically function as a lens that projects the imagined back and forth in time between artist and viewer.
There is a conundrum that lies at the heart of a visual artist’s practice. When an artwork exists it is because an artist looks forward in time towards a viewer just as that viewer looks backwards towards the artist. The work lives patiently in between, silent, inanimate, and temporally opaque. In the case of her Crazy Quilt, Greene thinks toward us in creating shapes that will eventually reverse course, cast towards a point in our eye.
I’m proposing that we as the audience look back through this metaphorical lens, which serves as any lens does to replicate, with distortions of sharpness, color and scale, a version of the information on its opposite side: we squint, trying to make out her boundaries, just as we are, or were to her, a faint, blurry presence, many years distant. Typically the process I describe is hidden while the art object itself is visible. In the case of Forwarding: Lenses I have embedded her shapes within the sculptures and they can only be sensed by their outlines.
The first eleven Forwarding: Lenses can be seen here. Each is made from a shape chosen randomly from one of the Forwarding I-XI works. The other 295 pieces have yet to be produced. For a deeper look at the source material and processes visit Forwarding Related Material.
All Image Credits: Tom Powel Imaging
