Gyongy Laky

Writing on the Wall
2011 / 90” X 90” X 3” / ash, dowels, paint

 

photo credit – Alan Robin & Aline Dargie

Whether grids, vessels, language related sculptures or abstracted architectural forms, I want my work to cue a combined sensory and mental experience through the relationship between what is tangible and tactile and what is metaphorical and suggested.

 

Working where the physical intersects with word, thought, memory and imagination, I explore the possibilities of form, arrangement, dimensionality, material, texture and pattern to alter learning, remembering, thinking and understanding. With simple text, common signs, or familiar objects I probe how experiencing these in visual, physical form might change, extend and/or enhance a viewer’s response. What is recognized and what is suggested encourages mental connections one might not otherwise make. I combine the verbal with the visceral. My desire is to make a letter seem like a sentence or to make a symbol, single word, sign or object function like a narrative. My concerns cross a variety of subjects and social issues. The choice of materials often reflects my love of nature and commitment to environmental sustainability.

 

Educated among artists and architects, I borrow freely from various methods and materials associated with architecture to construct sculptural wall works and freestanding forms while pursuing an aesthetic, intellectual and social enterprise. Through my extensive travels I developed an interest in simple, vernacular, hand built structures with natural materials such as fences, basketry, grills, lattices, trellises, scaffolding and foot bridges associated with hand made architecture. The workWriting on the Wall, however, while employing my usual materials (primarily wood gleaned from orchard pruning, park and garden trimmings and street trees), takes the form of assembled arrangement of parts – marks on a wall. In this recent work I became particularly interested in symbolic systems such as the letters of a writing system, characters, elements, graphic representations, hieroglyphs, ideographs, morphemes, calligraphs, pictographs, runes, signs, or syllabary – shapes meant for communicating.

 

– Gyongy Laky

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