FEBRUARY 25, 2010 ISSUE
Rosen Artist Residency Program to Feature 23rd Rosen Award-Winner Trace O’Connor
Artist Trace O’Connor won ASU’s 23rd annual Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition & Exhibition in 2009 with his sculpture “Iscariot.” O’Connor will be featured in a weeklong residency held on the ASU campus from Monday to Friday, March 1 to 5. Photo submittedArtist Trace O’Connor, winner of ASU’s 23rd annual Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition & Exhibition, will be featured in a weeklong residency held on the ASU campus from Monday to Friday, March 1 to 5. O’Connors’ sculpture, “Iscariot,” was named the Martin and Doris Rosen Award Winner during An Appalachian Summer Festival’s Sculpture Walk on July 25, 2009, and is currently located in front of Wey Hall on ASU’s campus.
As part of the Rosen Artist Residency program, Shawn Skabelund will present a public lecture on Wednesday, March 3, at 7:00 p.m. in the Turchin Center for the Visual Art’s Lecture Hall in Room 1102. A reception in honor of the artist will follow the presentation.
In addition to the public lecture, O’Connor will work with students of the university’s Department of Art by conducting class lectures, creating a project with students, offering group and individual critiques, as well as hosting a “meet and greet” on campus with the Facebook group followers. Department of Art Lecturer Sean Matthews organized O’Connor’s activities on campus.
The Rosen Artist Residency Program continues a longstanding partnership between the Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition and the ASU Department of Art. The Turchin Center is located at 423 West King Street in Boone.
For more information on the competition and exhibition, the residency program or for O’Connors’s full itinerary, click to www.tcva.org or www.rosensculpture.org.
Artist Statement from Trace O’Connor:
Media: “Predominantly welded steel of various types, also wood, cement, marble, bronze, plaster and leather.”
Genres: “Mostly, I work with reclaimed or recycled steel and wood as it gives character to my finished pieces that I would spend hours imparting by hand. This means that though most of my pieces have no profound political or religious agenda, they do have a “genesis” or “renaissance” feel. Almost everything I employ is used in some fashion which gives my work an eco-friendly look, and also gives viewers a common language to greet and digest my aesthetic. ‘Oh that used to be one of those...you know...things’ is often overheard amongst gallery patrons.”
First Artistic Murmurings: “No fancy art school. No private lessons. I remember a kid teaching me to draw in kindergarten and it took off from there, really. I always drew my way through school and didn’t really have traditional sculptural media readily available, save for Playdoh, until college. When clay passed my hands, I would always make compound shapes; duck bills, ribbons, flowing hair, fan shapes, etc.. Every teacher from middle school on stressed ‘structure’ and ‘stability.’ Put everything together and it’s not hard to see why I’m on this path. Today I make abstract carved wood pieces coupled with heavy machinery parts and giant human-octopus hybrids the size of my first apartment.”
Inspiration: “Nature. Nature. Nature. I get lost sometimes when I look at the structured growth of a piece of deer antler or slow motion crash of an ocean wave. Two old trees so close that they’ve almost grown together, the complexity of the simplest hydrogen molecule or the uncanny visual similarity of insects and deep sea life. The spiral of a hurricane. The zippered hooks in the strands of flight feathers of raptors. It’s all there and it’s all been done already by Mother Nature herself. All we can do is attempt to imitate and reassemble while respecting her boundaries.”
To What End (Why): “Why? Why not? Why would you not take advantage of your life? I’m smart, young, willing and capable. That’s why. I’m smart enough to know the difference. I’m young enough to know what 110 percent is. I’m willing to make sacrifices and I’m capable of accomplishing anything to which I apply myself. What I’m not willing to do is pass up opportunity. One of my favorite quotes as stated by the philosopher Bruce Lee: ‘...as how the sculptor, who does not keep adding clay to his statue, but instead strips away the inessentials until the truth is revealed,’ here linking Jeet Kune Do, his pared-down and focused, highly adaptable fighting style to everyday life once again. If you know your direction in this world, go as though your life depended on it. Don’t bother with what’s mere distraction. Move with a purpose!”
For more information, click to www.lyndonstreetartworks.com.
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