Need alchemic artists for thesis

[ara]

hi all, am having to write my thesis at present and am working with the title 'Alchemy in sculpture' . it is a very loose use of 'alchemy' in that i am writing about artists in particular sculptors who use an aspect of change in their work in particular a change of state.
this change needs to be something visible or insular to the creation process

i have written so far about some arte povera artists, richard serra, paul seide and keith tyson as well as my own casting practice.

i am now stuck! ive got about another 2000-3000 words to go and have completely run out of artists!

i need some from about 1985-2007 to keep it fairly contemporary, if anyone can think of an artist who works in this way (big names are not essential) then please will you post them here and if you have a picture or link that would be even better!

also i am unable to locate a picture of nick abdallas 'transmutation' sculpture that i believe to be outside the harwood art centre in alberque (sorry about spelling)
if you live local and have a pic of this, please please post it for me (as long as you dont mind me using it i will credit you as the photographer -we have to state all sources of pictures/information anyway)

any help you can give me is definately appreciated


thank you in advance


ara

[fritchie]

Depending on how much or what kind of change you want, how about ice sculptors, or explosively-formed sculptures. Or sculptors who like to see their works decay through rust, simple aging, sagging, or other processes? These changing pieces were very big in the 1960's, 70's, 80's, and still are.

[grommet]

Try Ron Leax. He has some series that investigate decay or use living things.
http://record.wustl.edu/2002/11-08-02/foundersday.html
lots of things in google too.

[evaldart]

Polona Tratnik and Donna franklin are doing stuff with mold and fungi...you might find a link to them by looking up the Symbiotica Science Lab at some college in Australia...I'm no good with the google brain but I'm sure its out there.

[jOe~]

Art is alchemy. Your thesis on grand wizards should be good. Check out the books by Linda Weintraub. She is really really perceptive, best I've found.

[Will]

Try a north west artist: John Grade

http://www.johngrade.com/

He's doing some cool things with steel and the ocean. Also, resin, bamboo and fur.

Will

[ironman]

We're all alchemists!
Have a great day,
Jeff

[ara]

hi all, thanks for the replies.

i seem to be confusing a few of you about what im after, probably because i wasnt thorough enough in my intital research...
i know art is the practice of change and manipulation but i need to be a bit more specific than that for this purpose
to expand a bit on what i said before i have already written about a couple of artists who use decay (damien hirst sam taylor wood...did i just mention two of the cardinal sins??) but dont really want to go too much further with this avenue, i have written about gilberto zorio and giovanni anselmo in regards to one or two of their sculptures from the 1960-70's i have covered richard serras splashing and a couple of other pieces by him in more detail than they deserve already, i have written a bit about keith tyson who seems to be mildly alchemic but it is maddeningly difficult to find info on his work other than the large field array piece.
ideally the work will continue to change after its initial creation, maybe subtley maybe obviously. something which involved a natural/chemical change of some kind would be great, but not anything machinated as that is a whole other area i dont have time to get into.
i also wrote some info on metal casting and using thermite for performance but again cant really stretch that much further



fritchie i covered ice sculptures in one of my previous essays and we're not really supposed to go back to what we have already written about. sculptures born out of explosions sounds more promising, do you have any names at all?

cornelia parker did something with a meteorite which she made a firework out of or something, i will look that up too.

will, i tried john grade but couldnt make sense of his website, does he do performance? installation? video? all three?


i will check out linda weintraub also next time i hit the library

cheers everyone for the help

ara

[fritchie]

Googling for "explosively formed sculpture" gave one site:
www.askart.com/AskART/artist.aspx?artist=11009634&searchtype=SUMMARY.

This discusses Silvana Cenci (1916 - 2000), and contains a picture.

I'm sure I remember more, working mostly in the American West, such as New Mexico or California. I'll try searching a bit more. Thought we had something on this site, but a quick search gave nothing.

[Later] A Google search for sculpture and explosive separately located this
http://www.sculpture.net/community/showthread.php?t=2324
on our own site, among thousands of relatively useless posts. That's probably at least part of what I remembered. Try other combinations.

[HelNbakWarzalot]

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i282/ceblove1/th_alchemy.jpg (http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i282/ceblove1/alchemy.jpg)

USA - Alchemy (1996) cast bronze sculpture by Heloise Crista at Taliesin West. Scottsdale, AZ

[ara]

fritchie that silvana cenci link is brill, i found her website and she has loads of examples on there (not much info on process unfortunately but i expect she doesnt want to be copied)

just what i was after! i have written to her asking (nicely) for more info

fingers crossed...

HelNbakWarzalot, thank you for that picture, unfortunately it is not really alchemic in the way that i need, a nice piece nevertheless.

cheers for the help everyone, keep it coming if you can!

ara

[Will]

will, i tried john grade but couldnt make sense of his website, does he do performance? installation? video? all three?
ara

Ara,

He does installation and sculpture.

I was thinking about this piece in particular:
http://www.johngrade.com/sculpture/1.html

It's an installation of steel in salt water. It's an ongoing decomposition / chemical reaction. Not sure if it's relative/relevant to what you are doing...

W~

[kraig]

Things that come to mind about my direction with alchemy , other then searching for the best salsa and the perfect cup of coffee, ..... mixing ones own alloys.... ferrous bronze for example, melting and duplicating results of colors in glass is difficult, and in the rust prevention department I am currently researching different phosphric/manganese hot bath.

[ara]

Hi all, Just a quick thank you to you all for the help with my thesis, its handed in now and i met the word limit ( and a bit more) so thank you very much!

Kraig, your experiments sound interesting...


Cheers

ara