Title
Creation Date
2018
Preview
Medium
bronze, bone, petrified wood, and steel
Rights
© Conor CdeBaca, 2018. Photo Credit: Dan Clements.
Keywords
bronze, bone, skull, petrified, sculpture, desert
2018
bronze, bone, petrified wood, and steel
© Conor CdeBaca, 2018. Photo Credit: Dan Clements.
bronze, bone, skull, petrified, sculpture, desert
Artist Statement
Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . Near them, on the sand,
Half Sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And Wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Time has a way of making a mockery of the boastfulness of the human race. Depressing, I know since this a spring grad show that’s supposed to be about renewal. I’m not arguing the regenerative powers of spring nor discussing the merits of the positivity of art as I genuinely hope you find enjoyment in my work. This body of work is an exploration of the human compulsion of control amidst chaos and the longing for understanding. The cacophony of natural phenomena happening all around us that we ourselves have zero control over provokes feelings of angst and inadequacy that we must understand, we must control. Time: quantified. Nature: paved over, torn down, shot up. Animals: domesticated and subjugated. Humans themselves: regulated. Does our survival as a species rely upon our ability to quantify, qualify and organize everything that isn’t us? I pose this question to you, viewer. Again I refer to Ozymandias, once a king of kings simply now the broken king of so much sand, as the natural order reclaimed and outlasted his arrogant humanity. Note I said natural order and not human arrangement; for us can there be one without the other? Upon reaching our ultimate human potential as a society will nature be able to survive or will it continue to scoff at our efforts to exist?