3D Art

Sculpture Overview

"Sculpture is the art of the hole and the lump." - Auguste Rodin

"Painting is so poetic, while sculpture is more logical and scientific and makes you worry about gravity." - Damien Hirst

Typology

A thorough understanding of sculpture (as an art-making activity) is made easier if we categorize the various ways that sculptors work and the types of artworks that they produce.

The term "sculpture" often encompasses a vast territory of processes and materials. Broadly speaking, we can group these processes into four general approaches: reduction, addition, casting and recontextualiaztion.

From the broadest possible perspective, a sculptor is someone who works in three-dimensions: from simple object-making to the creation of indoor spaces and the transformation of outdoor tracts of land. We can, therefore, divide this practice into activities that are object-centred and those that are space-centred. (Click the first image below to see some examples that will help you to visualize this fascinating art-form.)

Systematic Art Production

"The seed of your next artwork lies embedded in the imperfections of your current piece." - David Bayles

"You begin with the possibilities of the material." - Robert Rauschenberg

Being an artist is amazing, but it's also hard work and sometimes the financial rewards are lacking. To sustain a career in the arts over a lifetime, an artist must have determination. To become a prolific art-maker, she must also find ways to nourish her creativity.

The ideal situation is when one artwork leads to another and then another and then, before long, a body of artworks emerges. For this to happen, art production must become self–generating. A dependable way to generate and maintain ones creativity over weeks, months or years is for the artist to explore a territory of connected subjects, materials or processes: a practice that might be called "Systematic Art Production".

To initiate a systematic and self–generating body of artworks, the artist will begin a horizontal exploration of somewhat related ideas. After a time, she will discover a subject, a material or a process that holds particular fascination for her. At this point, the exploration becomes a vertical progression from one work to another until the creative possibilities within that ever–narrowing field are exhausted or the artist is satisfied. Along the way, the artist will probably discover several new paths that she can then follow toward the creation of a new body of artworks: one set of works giving rise to another. Often, these new paths come about as the unexpected consequence of experimentation and the discovery of "automatated" processes that offer the artist some new understanding.

Systematization and Automation are powerful tools that can add momentum and creativity to an artist's work. Harnessing the power of these tools will turn art–making into a productive, lifelong pursuit.