Emergence | Thomas Scoon 2019

Statement from the Artist on the Show: 

    In my work, I create figures from sequences of stone and glass. The figures rise up from the external landscape where I live, a place filled with remnants of stonewalls and glacial erratic. I gather stones from quarry rubble and from New Hampshire neighbors who allow me to choose stone from their land. The glass portions of the sculpture are combined with these found stones, suggesting human figures, I try to choose rocks thatevoke the feeling and gesture of human forms, specifically torsos and heads. I will look for a flat rock with a curved edge and tapering form to suggest torsos or the triangulation of  stone with a cleft that may hint of a head. I do very little to alter these stones in the process of making sculptures, perhaps just chiseling or cutting a bit. Instead, I seek to emphasize qualities already naturally present.

   The layering of kiln-cast glass with the stone allows for light to pass through the figures and for what I hope embodies the spiritual and physical essence of human nature into each sculpture. By marrying fire and materials of earth with the modern process of casting glass, there is a fusion of composition and chance.

    The figures range in scale from larger-than-life to those under twelve inches. Given the range of scale and opportunity to group figures together, there are layers of interpersonal drama, gender, and generational concerns. The combination of materials expresses both the fragility and enduring qualities of humanity. I believe the figures are universal in that they speak directly to what is elemental rather than superficial about us and our relationships to others. These qualities of spirit are nearly indefinable, those qualities that we share in our immediate lives as well as through a common human history, but it is what I want to capture in some small measure.

   The “Entwines” cast bronze tree branch sculptures explore ideas between nature and mankind’s reliance on the environment. By casting tree branches in bronze my figuresseem to emerge and grow out of these living branches. Entwined in this growth my figures become couples who are being pulled together and merged in a union by the bronze branches and cast leaves. The figures seem ready to bloom in life through the dynamics of human relationships, birth, and nature. I hope they suggest a family lineage in our relationship to mankind and also to the natural world.

-Thomas Scoon