About
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| About |
| ABIGAIL GUMBINER Artist’s Statement 2011, 2012 Sculpted Photographs and Auto Lust: I began as a welded metal sculptor creating abstract constructions. During the 1970’s and 80’s I also used the camera to document my earthworks and conceptual art, ephemeral pieces that could only survive as photographs. I was car crazy for most of my life and often found subject matter while chasing down huge hunks of chrome and shapes in 1950's cars. I have always viewed automobiles as magnificent sculpture. Now custom cars from the past fill my cameras, as do heaps of rusting, metal car parts. I almost crawl into the mirrored reflections in the auto chrome with my camera. The melding of sculpture and photography came about when I was experimenting with new ways to communicate the buzz that I felt when viewing and photographing the subjects. The series reveals that photography does not have to be flat, that it can exist in the 3 dimensional world of sculpture. The work begins as a large photograph that I print on fine art photo paper, then I sculpt and shape it. The 3rd dimension changes the relationships within the photograph, as the sculpture takes on a life of its own. Flesh: Using the tangle of multiple bodies, bones, hair and limbs, massive draft horses are the starting point for another series of photographs. Following years of work with abstractions of the human figure, the powerful draft horses provide new models. While reducing these living subjects to their elemental forms, I experience the hunks of horse bodies and the automobiles as sensual, sculptural, textural and tactile. NEON: In the early 1990's old metal signs, neon and vernacular architecture became the subjects of my photography book Vacant Eden; Roadside Treasures of the Sonoran Desert. The book was co-photographed with Carol Hayden and is still available. |