Spring Catalogue Exhibition 2009
David McCracken
Blown Dodecahedron, 2005
304 welded stainless steel, 1100 mm in diameter
New Zealand sculptor David McCracken has in the past been involved in a range of careers that have allowed him to cultivate his skills in working with different materials. In his teens McCracken experimented in sculpting with wood, while in his twenties he worked in areas such as boat building and construction, and there gained skills using fibre, and later steel fabrication and welding. After this period McCracken became involved in the performing arts, and worked in creating sets and props. Perhaps influenced by this experience in performance, the theatrical is an element that has followed McCracken through to his most recent artistic practice. In fact, this sense of theatre, and the artist's apparent ease in working with different materials, are two of the integral components of McCracken's practice.
Many of McCracken's key pieces are whimsical and illusionistic. Works such as Blown Dodecahedron (2005) for example, play with the conventional properties of particular sculptural materials. Blown Dodecahedron is made from stainless steel, a material that has associations of being hard edged, cold and impenetrable. However, McCracken's work has a feeling of lightness to it, and even rocks slightly in the wind. The spherical form has cracks cut into it at regular intervals, like geological fissures in the earth's surface. The curved edges and final shape formed by the incisions mean that the sculpture looks soft, even cushiony. Like other of McCracken's pieces Blown Dodecahedron plays with the idea that the work could be an inflated object. Unlike more traditional sculptural materials such as bronze, the highly polished surface gleams in the sunlight and reflects the world around it. WW
