Lizzie Scott

Stream (Green Glow, Coral Bars)

2024

textile & mixed media

cold rolled steel, natural rusted finish wall sculpture

The artistic collaboration of Kelly Bugden + Van Wifvat has produced a thought-provoking body of sculptures, paintings, and constructions. Nature, childhood memories, and everyday archetypes take shape in unexpected combinations of materials. The works emerged as the tactile and visual senses channeled the ritualistic power and materiality of selected artifacts. The resulting objects exist in a space between what they were originally and what they could become. A wheel, for example, is distorted as if seen through a prism. Their collaboration grew out of years of shaping materials into one-of-a-kind objects. Intuitively, the process of creating with their hands took an inward turn. Prism is a travelogue through memories and dreams, yielding abstract forms that capture moments of transformation. Van Wifvat grew up with eight siblings and studied sculpture and environmental design in Minneapolis at MCAD. In 1979, he opened a storefront art gallery to promote the work of local artists. The space featured printed materials—art books, periodicals, fanzines, and postcard’s. Wifvat moved to New York in 1983 to study at the Fashion Institute of Technology and Parsons. In 1987, he co-founded Van Gregory & Norton design studio, specializing in convex mirrors and curtain hardware...

"These inflated objects are grown more than fabricated. Through the process of inflation, the application of the air to the geometric construction defines form at the moment of inflation." It is the pragmatic that draws Thomas. Asked about his influences he asserts that his primary influences do not come from the realm of art but rather from everyday living. “I don’t eat, sleep, and breathe art,” he comments. His discovery of metal-working arose in a similar, practical way. Thomas had been sculpting with stone and asked someone to show him how to forge his own chisel. This was the start of his exploration of forging techniques and after a time he gave up working with stone to work with metal. One of the key aspects of blacksmithing that intrigued Thomas was fact that it isn’t instantly gratifying, and it poses questions that aren’t easily solved. He interned with Tom Joyce...