Students Memorial

Comment

Comment by William Pupa on January 27, 2013 at 3:34pm

Dear Kristen,
Thank you for your comments regarding the sculptures recently posted on your site. The Student Memorial is located on the Loyola Marymount University campus in Los Angeles. It is in fact bronze and was commissioned by Alumni relations to memorialize students who had passed away while enrolled at the university. I am Artist in Residence at the university and when I was approached to do this memorial I suggested we make the piece on campus. The entire university community was invited to view the piece as it was being made and several students helped in the actual work. The sculpture was modeled in clay and cast in plaster using the plaster waste mold method, in little use today. The casting was done off campus in a foundry in Berkeley.
 
Presently I do not have gallery representation. All my time in recent years has been dedicated to teaching, sculpture commissions and directing a study abroad program for the university. My goal is to transition into making figurative sculptures on commission and have gallery representation for my personal work. Thank you for the opportunity to post some of my work on your website. Also, thank you for your insight into my work. Do you write art critiques for publication?
 

Comment by Resident Curator on January 16, 2013 at 6:32pm

Curator’s Comment:

 

I believe this is a detail of your monumental (likely bronze) installation Ad Astra Per Aspera, and I’m curious about the origins of its placement and particulars surrounding its creation and commission.  But regardless of these contextual factors, the emotive power of the sculpture is palpable.  I admire the Classical contraposto and proportion in your other figurative works, but these portraits have an individualistic authenticity that connects me to them beyond my veneration of their form or beauty. The sculpted drapery defines the anatomy of the figures, but places them in a contemporary if not timeless construct.   The stepped elevation of selected figures above their group on small pedestals within the piece literally and pictorially signifies spiritual ascension. But the downward gesture of their open hands also suggests vulnerability and compliance rather than personal triumph.  The second portrait you’ve posted on the site, which very well may be a clay maquette, is also strikingly lifelike in his idiosyncratic features.  The intensity of expression and set of the eyes and mouth breathe life into the exquisitely modeled head.