Engaged, absorbed, AMAZED; these are the words that describe my personal experience of the larger-than-life art of Canadian sculptor Evan Penny, whose exhibition Re-Figured just opened in Toronto at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Evan Penny’s hyper realistic, painstakingly crafted figures are composed of layers of colour pigmented silicone, hair, fabric and resin.
His sculptures are amazingly realistic yet at the same time highly artificial as Penny skews, stretches and alters the human form in severe and sometimes unsettling ways.
An entire room in the exhibit is devoted to Penny’s labour intensive process. These sculptures are hand-made. In the exhibition film, Penny mentions that one of the works in the exhibit (the portrait of Libby Faux not shown here) took 400 hours to complete.
If you live in the Toronto area I highly encourage you to see this must-see show at the Art Gallery of Ontario (September 20, 2012 – January 6, 2013). I promise you can’t stand in front of this larger-than-life sculpture and not say “Wow!” at least once. It’s awe-inspiring.
Cheekytree 