Dome and Painter (2007-08)
The EKWC is in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the birthplace of Hieronymous Bosch. A rather stolid bronze sculpture commemorates his presence, off centre in a corner of the market square, as though unsure whether he should be celebrated. The statue is in stark contrast to his visionary paintings, impossible to ignore now that Surrealism is part of our cultural landscape. His dour presence presides incongruously over the annual ribald carnival season.
Incongruous too, to be working with Alberto’s digital Palladio in this northern town. I recreated the Bosch statue, an oblique observer to contemplate the wall mounted Palladian capitals generated from Alberto’s files.
On the computer I designed an axonometric framework for the hand modelling in a soft red wax, an inversion of the rigid verdigris bronze in the town square. Subsequently, the small oblique figure found a better conversation with the rapid prototype dome I modelled a year or so after the EKWC residency. The Dome’s hemispherical form seemed to convey a better ambiguity of “materialized perspective”, complimenting the axonometric figure — a pair of distorted objects slicing through our ordinary space, paradoxing the conventions of representation.