Brave New World
Charles Pilkey
Mint Hill, NC
Steel, bronze, cast aluminum
Artist Comments
The sculptor – a beachcomber wandering the boundless shore of the world, collects unusual wave-washed shapes and assembles them into artworks. The shore is the edge of the unconscious and the wave-washed shapes are the flotsam and jetsam of world culture, tossed up by the tides of time. It’s humbling to consider how ancient the lineage of sculpture is; by some reckoning, it goes back tens of thousands of years. Certain issues – love, birth, death – have always been of interest to the sculptor. Other issues have changed with the advance of technology. But the technical and formal concerns of Phidias, Unkei, Michelangelo and other masters of form, are much the same for the contemporary artist. And like them, we too want to give free flight to private visions, even while feeling the cold chain of morality tugging at our throats. I’ve been influenced by everyone and no one; my allegiance is to the individualistic visionaries of the past – Bosch, Sesshu and others – more than to any contemporary movement. I am at home everywhere and nowhere. My technique is no technique. My style is none; the works flow from hands like dreams. I worship in equal measure the creative power of the human mind and the vast capacity for love in the human heart. At night, I look up at the stars and wonder…
-Charles Pilkey