Nude FS 1-20 Punt
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Artist's Statement
Gordon Punt, MFA
I love many types of art and have been creating it for most
of my life. After living in
Sonoma County for 24 years I moved to Ventura around 1998.
I work basically in three mediums, which are; pen &
ink, bronze and stone. Human faces and nudes are my main
focus of interest, which I express in both classical and
abstract ways. I have taught art to children and adults
and involve myself in the artistic communities where I live.
For over forty years I have been drawing the human figure
and continually find it challenging. Drawing from a live
model is the primary method I use. Sometimes in as little
as thirty seconds I try to capture the illusive movement
of dance, a gesture of emotion, or a sensual moment. I have
recently been enlarging the scale of my drawings to four-foot
canvases, and have been experimenting with different mediums
to accomplish this.
The subject matter of my early bronze figures dealt with
various human conditions that I saw in the world and experienced
myself. Titles such as Frustration, Heartman,
Scream, and Never Enough give you
an idea of what I was working with. My bronze is influenced
by the work of Rodin, where detail is subservient to emotion,
texture, vitality and strength. I have strong ties to classical
art, yet feel the pull of modern art. My interest in the
human face also led me in to making life size bronze portraits
of notable individuals for Cities and Institutions. In recent
years I have been working mainly with the female nude. I
have incorporated a stronger and simpler element of design
and celebrate the positive and negative shapes the figures
make in space. The acrobatic series I am working on relates
to my love of gymnastics, and is a sport I once competed
in at college. I plan to keep this group in the sketch format,
inspired by the small bronze ballerinas of Degas.
Working in stone and bronze is a way to attain some degree
of immortality. The process of using a hammer and chisel,
and chipping away at a seemingly indestructible piece of
stone is also satisfying to me. I like to use two different
techniques in developing stone sculptures; one is polishing
the entire stone to a pristine finish, the other is to leave
some of the original stone showing at it's completion. Carving
marble in Italy several years ago exposed me to Michael
Angelos series called The Bound Slaves.
These are figures partially emerging from the stone that
binds them. I have continued with that image of raw stone
in combination with partially developed figures. The Kansas
Fence Posts made out of limestone and standing five to six
feet tall are ideal for this approach. My premise however
is to express the relationship we humans still have with
nature, and to celebrate the pure beauty of stone itself.
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