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MARK wALKER

Lives and works in Hildisrieden, switzerland
 www.laser-sculptures.ch
artist contact
 dmin@laser-sculptures.ch
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.
Dr. Andrea Fischbacher

PAssIOn, 2004 scULptUre /cHrome, nickeL,
steeL40x27 in. /100x70 cm.
FAr-sIgHTed, 2002 scULptUre /cHrome, nickeL,
steeL 35x24 in. /90x60 cm.