Charles
Welles carves marble sculpture.
Stone has several dominant qualities in the popular mind.
One is hardness; another is weight; another is roughness; and yet
another is immovability. Throughout both the
classical and neo-classical eras, marble as a medium has intended to convey
those qualities.
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Opposite qualities are lightness,
smoothness, elasticity and softness. Since marble does not normally embody
these qualities, then they must be achieved by illusion. Charles Welles often
uses the medium of marble
to convey those very opposites - softness, ephemerality, movement, elasticity, or lightness. This creates a sense
of
ambiguity, or a sense of irony. One first sees an object which seems to have
certain qualities, and then it is discovered to be a stone, which normally
connotes the opposite qualities. There is a suggestion - particularly
when
images of realistic objects are portrayed - of the trompe d'oeil. When you come
to the realization that the medium is
the contrary of the visual image, you have
this sense of ambiguity,
irony, or disjointedness. A shirt of marble, a pillow
of stone.
Another aspect of the marble
sculpture of Welles relates to
his use of light. In a painting, light and dark
are achieved by painting |
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those qualities. In a piece of
marble, the illusion of light and dark are created by the way in
which the medium is shaped. A
sharp edge, for example, creates a line with light on one side and
darkness on
the other, depending on the light source. In marble, light and
dark are created with the very material itself. |
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