The Moment Ossified (Surface 1) (2014) Sculpture by Kristopher Lionel

Kristopher Lionel. 'The Moment Ossified (Surface 1)'. 2014. Oil, Acrylic, Aniline Dye on Plywood. 47 x 80.5 x 2.5 inches.

* 'The Moment Ossified (Surface 1)' received Honorable Mention in Light Space and Time's, 13th annual “Abstracts” Art Exhibition 2022 (The gallery received 1,091 entries from 29 different countries from around the world, as well as from 36 different states and the District of Columbia).

The first piece in my series 'Surfaces' is a work titled 'The Moment Ossified (Surface 1)'. To talk about this piece, and the resulting series, I need to provide the backdrop, the setting that led to it's conception. After receiving my Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree in 1994, then going on to attain my Master of Fine Art Degree in 1997, both with concentrations in sculpture, I was offered a job working in a metal fabrication studio in Atlanta, GA. After a couple of years of this, I decided it wasn't satisfying my creative compulsions, so I moved back the the Northeast to start an artisan/art furniture design and fabrication business (a 'commercial' use of my skills with the ulterior motive of "working on my art" in the space and with the tools and equipment used to build the furniture). Part of setting up my workshop was to build a large table as a main working surface, the base of this table had a 1/2 inch (removable) sheet of plywood screwed to it as a top. I made it removable knowing that it would take a beating and eventually need to be replaced.

A number of years later, as I was looking at this worktable that had accumulated several years of cuts, scratches, holes, and stains, I saw shapes and lines suggesting a strong composition and realized that it was calling out to be made into a work of art, a wall sculpture. With paint and stain I began to emphasize selected shapes and obscure others. After working on it laid flat for a time (often looking down from atop an eight foot ladder), I separated it from its base and worked on it upright, cutting through it and making the recessed shapes you see in the finished piece. Working through the process of discovering and creating this piece, I decided that "Surface" (thought of as both noun and verb) was how I would name it. Years of building furniture on this work-surface resulted in a rich accumulation of mark, these marks eventually surfaced to reveal the composition of an artwork. Surface is both what it was and how it became what it now is.

My wall sculpture, 'The Moment Ossified (Surface 1)', is informed by Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. The piece features lines and shapes cut into the surface in bas-relief as well as 2 inch and 1 inch deep recessed shapes that are backed and edged with collages of drawings on paper. The drawings include representational fragments arranged in abstracted, dreamlike sequences meant to induce a sense of memory, of fading or forming thought. These recessed shapes are set in the context of an expressive field of line, shape, color, tonality, and texture around a central horizon line, suggesting a surrealistic landscape or mindscape. 'The Moment Ossified (Surface 1)' was inspired by isolated moments that, although dreamlike and incongruous, rise to the surface and solidify against a fading backdrop with the passing of time. This piece is part of an ongoing series titled 'Surfaces'.

* A note about the series, 'Surfaces':

The process described above, in which the accumulation of mark resulted from making furniture, ended when I decided that furniture making wasn't satisfying my creative compulsions and began to focus singularly on my artwork. The lines and marks, etc. in 'Dissociating & Tumbling (Surface 4)', and all 'Surfaces' moving forward, were/are accumulated from my art-making process.

Related themes

SurrealSurrealismSurrealist Oil PaintingSurrealistic LandscapeMindscape