Page 69 - Famous

 STRIVING, 1997 SCULPTURE /CHROME, NICKEL, STEEL 32X18 IN. /80X45 CM.
 THE BEJEWELLED, 1996 SCULPTURE /CHROME, NICKEL, STEEL 12X14 IN. /30X35 CM.

THE RULER, 2000 SCULPTURE /CHROME, NICKEL, STEEL 40X24 IN. /100X60 CM.

SMark Walker: Sculptures

Passion, female, striving – that’s how the coolly glisterning steel bodies
with their light-permeable openings present themselves. Women’s heads,
pausing for a moment in an extravagant turn while captivating their observers.
Women’s heads with long hair that turns into a hand pointing the way, lending
the female character an unexpectedly dominant – even courageous – air, or
maybe something that strives upwards in a way like the foliage of an aquatic
plant, towards the light, while the eye area appears winding itself seductively
down to the ground protected by foliage. Women’s heads, whose hair moves
the stylised body in a spider-like way with a spiral rotation and who, in the
cool eroticism and distant proximity, radiate an incredible attraction.

With highly polished steel and light, Mark Walker plays the old seductive Song
of Loreley, the beautiful mermaid’s song who according to legend lured the
passing sailors to their doom. Processed using a high-tech laser method, the
artist designs and develops the shapes on-screen with specialist programs.
This method offers Mark Walker the opportunity to work his bodies and areas
with extreme accuracy and precision, to bend the steel in any direction and
– thanks to cut-out voids – to make them appear light and airy. Here, feeling
and technology find their interface which is expressed thematically in a
contradictory appearance.

This radiation is what determines the intrinsic diversity of the works which
is provided externally by means of skilfully placed views into and through
the sculptures, as well as by means of the highly polished surfaces which, in
addition to the playful use of light and shadow, work with the mirror effect.

The artist works not only with heads but also with portraits. On the one hand,
in a well sculpture, on the other, in stele-like works. In all cases we see the
personal characteristics in abstract form and, in a playful combination of area
and void, led towards a liveliness and lightness that otherwise only develops
in rotation and reflection.

Mark Walker, born in Bern in 1953, studied at the Liceo artistico in Bolzano
and at the Accademia di belle arti in Florence. He has been running his own
art and planning studio in Hildisrieden (Lucerne) since 1976. Walker continues
his use of forms and his fascinating visions in complex watercolour painting
and in the design of sophisticated jewellery, carried out as small sculptures
in various combinations of precious metals and precious stones – enigmatic,
aesthetic, powerful.
.Dr. Andrea Fischbacher

FAMOUS
CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS