
Kristopher Lionel
"I remember that day how the ocean's blue shed a shade or two at the sun's behest and then later how that fickle sea took back a shade or three as the sun tired and fell to rest." -Kristopher Lionel
4 artworks by Kristopher Lionel (Selection)
Download as PDFSurfaces • 4 artworks
The first piece in my series, 'Surfaces', is a work titled, 'The Moment Ossified (Surface 1)'. To talk [...]
The first piece in my series, 'Surfaces', is a work titled, 'The Moment Ossified (Surface 1)'. To talk about this piece, and the resulting series, I need to provide the backdrop, the setting that led to it's conception. After receiving my Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree in 1994, then going on to attain my Master of Fine Art Degree in 1997, both with concentrations in sculpture, I was offered a job working in a metal fabrication studio in Atlanta, GA. After a couple of years of this, I decided that it wasn't satisfying my creative compulsions, so I moved back the the Northeast to start an artisan/art furniture design and fabrication business (a "commercial" use of my skills with the ulterior motive of "working on my art" in the space and with the tools and equipment used to build the furniture). Part of setting up my workshop was to build a large table as a main working surface, the base of this table had a 1/2 inch (removable) sheet of plywood screwed to it as a top. I made it removable knowing that it would take a lot of wear and tear and eventually need to be replaced.
A number of years later, as I was looking at this worktable that had accumulated several years of cuts, scratches, holes, and stains, I saw shapes and lines suggesting a strong composition and realized that it was calling out to be made into a work of art, a wall sculpture. With paint and stain I began to emphasize selected shapes and obscure others. After working on it laid flat for a time (often looking down from atop an eight foot ladder), I separated it from its base and worked on it upright, cutting through it and making the recessed shapes you see in the finished piece. Working through the process of discovering and creating this piece, I decided that "Surface" (thought of as both noun and verb) was how I would name it. Years of building furniture on this work-surface resulted in a rich, uncontrived, accumulation of mark that would be difficult, if not impossible to mimic or reproduce. These marks eventually surfaced to reveal the composition of an artwork. 'Surface' is both what it is and how it came to be.
* A note about the series, 'Surfaces':
The process described above, in which the accumulation of mark resulted from making furniture, ended when I decided that furniture making wasn't satisfying my creative compulsions and closed my business to focus singularly on my artwork. The lines and marks, etc, in 'Dissociating and Tumbling (Surface 4)', and all 'Surfaces' moving forward, were/are accumulated from my art-making process.
A number of years later, as I was looking at this worktable that had accumulated several years of cuts, scratches, holes, and stains, I saw shapes and lines suggesting a strong composition and realized that it was calling out to be made into a work of art, a wall sculpture. With paint and stain I began to emphasize selected shapes and obscure others. After working on it laid flat for a time (often looking down from atop an eight foot ladder), I separated it from its base and worked on it upright, cutting through it and making the recessed shapes you see in the finished piece. Working through the process of discovering and creating this piece, I decided that "Surface" (thought of as both noun and verb) was how I would name it. Years of building furniture on this work-surface resulted in a rich, uncontrived, accumulation of mark that would be difficult, if not impossible to mimic or reproduce. These marks eventually surfaced to reveal the composition of an artwork. 'Surface' is both what it is and how it came to be.
* A note about the series, 'Surfaces':
The process described above, in which the accumulation of mark resulted from making furniture, ended when I decided that furniture making wasn't satisfying my creative compulsions and closed my business to focus singularly on my artwork. The lines and marks, etc, in 'Dissociating and Tumbling (Surface 4)', and all 'Surfaces' moving forward, were/are accumulated from my art-making process.

"The Beat of a Dragonfly's Wings (Surface 2)"
Not For Sale

Kristopher Lionel
"The Moment Ossified (Surface 1)"
Sculpture - Pigments | 47x80.5 in
Not For Sale

Kristopher Lionel
"'Dissociating and Tumbling (Surface 4)'"
Sculpture - Wood | 56x80.5 in
Not For Sale

Kristopher Lionel
"000.1 (Surface 3)"
Sculpture - Wood | 47x80.5 in
Not For Sale
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