(Entertainment-NewsWire.com, November 12, 2012 ) Santa Fe, NM -- When you work with metal, even doodling is an elemental process. Mark White was creating a series of sculptures made of twisted steel square tubes when he noticed a pile of scrap metal collecting on his studio floor. With the help of a hammer and welder, he found a new way to make little human figures. He started grouping them in playful pairs and soon the We (tm) series was born.
Now one wall at Mark White Contemporary Art, the artist's new Railyard gallery, is populated by the 14-inch-tall sculptures. The series is so popular that White has since run out of scrap metal. Opening the new space was an opportunity to expand and invent, and for someone like White, ideas don't stay on paper for long.
“It's one of those things where a lot of times you put off that idea, so I did it immediately,” White says of the We (TM) series. “A little tweak in the direction of the head or a slight bend in the arm could change body language so much.”
In “We Sync” a metallic duo sways in unison. “We Whee” shows a pair of figures reaching for the sky. “We—Homage to Grant Wood's American Gothic” is just how you would imagine it, tiny pitchfork included.
Opening the new space was an opportunity for White to branch out in other mediums as well. A trip to Laguna Beach inspired ocean scenes in oil, and engraved patinas on aluminum that bend light into rippling waves of water.
Back in Santa Fe, White recently traveled up to the aspens to capture the light of the forest in engravings. “I'm using my patinas in a very loose way and allowing them to flow,” he says “I love the dendritic pattern, the branching of limbs.” White sets the panels alight using fiery orange patinas and forms tree trunks with gestural strokes of India ink that form ever-dividing patterns, spectacularly capturing the complex dimensionality of the wild. “The landscape is the most dominant thing in my life. When I wake up in the morning, I see the sunrise,”he says. “Or I see the sunrise after I've been up working a couple of hours.”
The tireless artist has endless ideas bouncing around in his head, and you never know what's going to leap from mind to matter next. “I don't have a set artistic direction. I really don't,” says White. “I'll go with the flow of whatever's coming my way.”
Mark White Contemporary Art is located at 1611 Railyard Road across from SITE Santa Fe. Please contact Mark White or Charles Veilleux at info@markwhitefineart.com for more information.
