Skunkadelia

Sculptures in Metal
by Skunk

Somerville Open Studios
Somerville, MA
May 4-5, 2013

I have been by Skunk’s place in Winter Hill a couple of times during Somerville Open Studios – originally recommended to me by the Somerville sculptor Hilary Scott – and the experience is, much like entering Hilary Scott’s world, a trip into an imaginative funhouse full of surprising and entertaining images.

The work is principally metal sculpture fashioned out of found objects. Most of it has an amusing and fanciful quality, but, because of its hard and sharp components, it is somewhat dark and punky as well.

A pair of large robot figures constructed out of something like electrical panel boxes adorned the porch, while a doorway was framed in a cascade of gears, scissor pieces and other detritus.

All kinds of things – leaves from an old steamer basket, perhaps an old blender container, gears – helped to create a sweetly disposed droid, its smile framed by the container’s horizontal seam.

An elaborate congeries of valves, tubes, pipes and an old derailleur sat atop a couple of legs strutted over gear-feet to create a birdlike creature.

The roughness of the materials gives a superficial toughness to the otherwise frequently cartoonlike pieces which, despite their protruding teeth and sometimes sharp edges, evoke a sense of gentle charm and bemused vulnerability.

– BADMan