Jacqueline Shatz
Artist Statement:
My wall sculptures involve suspended states of being and the permeable nature of time. The images of swimming, floating and "about to" gestures imply anticipation, hesitancy, anxiety or relief from anxiety. I did not set out to express specific qualities - they emerged from the selection of the figures and the creation of the pieces themselves. The meanings are hidden like the meanings in dreams.
These works ride the edge between painting and sculpture; between stillness and movement; between the figurative and the abstract. The dimensions of the sculptures allow one to look into an intimate space; they owe a debt to the scale and narratives of Medieval art.
These sculptures are part of a continuing series of reimagining symbols of the past about forces of history and nature and creating contemporary sculptural archetypes. They forge a bridge between past icons of art by reimagining them as icons with contemporary relevance. Ideas of transformation, anthropomorphism and myth are implied.