Matthew Csernansky
Steel
Location: Jubilee Park (at the corner of Jefferson Ave. and St. Louis St.)
ARTIST’S STATEMENT:
Nature surrounds us every day with the minimalistic beauties of curve, geometry and subtlety. My art utilizes modern materials to capture these natural sensibilities that often go overlooked and seeks to provide the viewer with a way to experience them.
Connection and structure are integral in my work, as well as to the viewer’s experience. However, attachments and marks of construction should only ever be shown when seeking to use them to prove a point. Full immersion and acceptance of the illusion and state of mind demanded by a sculpture are better achieved when the viewer cannot see precisely how the piece was made. The minimal amount of hardware should be used when choosing to show the connection, and the attachment point should be reduced as much as possible to design an aesthetic woven throughout the piece. These techniques are used to create a meditative experience and give the viewer a moment of pause in an ever-speeding world of distraction and information.
Shelter is something many people take for granted. It is one of the main reasons the human species chooses to live in communities. Whether for common interests or physical protection from the elements, shelter provides reasons not only to share goals, but also to share lives. The intimate and the practical are brought together at this single point. My piece allows these concepts and aesthetics to be experienced in everyday life.
PIECE DESCRIPTION:
Folded Weight I is meant to evoke our earliest tangible memories of natural and man-made objects that awed us with their scale, weight, and presence. We’ve all experienced the discovery of weight and dimension in our lives, though often without engaging the beauty of the forms as they define space. This sculpture draws the viewer into lines, planes and connections in steel that combine aesthetic with utility. Folded Weight I is simple in its intent and therefore simple in its shape—like a sheet of paper that becomes an origami form when folded into new planes. Folded Weight I takes solid metal planes and joins them with minimalistic brackets that lift the structure upward, creating a sense of lightness as it takes on 3 dimensions.
In the world, Folded Weight I is a shelter, a moment of rest, a place of balance. Suspended through the simple, but strong brackets the structure inspires contemplation of what steel can represent when lifted from the ordinary to art. The visual tension created by the angles between plates brings focus to both its positive and negative space. Folded Weight I is meant to encourage reflection and meditation.
Not defined by conventional beauty which is mired by our need for reproduction and the immediacy of death. The wonder that is evoked by “Folded Weight I” is defined by its interaction with the environment that surrounds it: Weather, time and space will mold its patina and the history of its existence will be scoured into its own surface.
Visit Matthew Csernansky’s website to see his other works: www.matthewcsernansky.com
Find him on Instagram @matthewcsernansky
Sponsor: David O’Reilly