Chris Duncan, associate professor of
sculpture and drawing, has found that being away from the
comforts and conveniences of his studio can be inspiring.
Last fall, Duncan accompanied a group
of students to China. Not expecting to have the chance to
do much sculpting, he took along only his charcoals and
some heavy drawing paper.
While in China, Duncan discovered very
thin Chinese rice paper and Chinese ink and paintbrushes.
Working with these light and flexible materials proved
liberating.
“Building layers of line and color
was like building up the surface of a sculpture,” he
says. “So, some of the Chinese drawings are like
studies for sculpture, while others read more as screens
of giddy calligraphy.”
Duncan showed some of the work he did
in China in an exhibit over the winter in the Nott
Memorial. Also featured were older, abstract charcoal
drawings as well as sculptures in steel, bronze, and
plaster.
“I work abstractly, but I've been
incorporating regular objects in the pieces,” he
says. “Ideally, there's some sort of tension, maybe
a play between representation and abstraction.”
Steel has always been Duncan's
preferred medium.
“Even though the piece is made out
of industrial material, the intent is to evoke a feeling
for the body, for the organic,” he says. His steel
wall pieces are reminiscent of masks, and one might
notice other associations with the body in his sculpture.
Students in his sculpture class during the winter term
made portraits of themselves using body fragments made
with plaster molds.
Some of Duncan's sculptures have small
plastic toys and cars embedded in them. The toys, which
came from a bag lying around his studio, worked their way
into the sculptures to represent overwhelming feelings of
“all the stuff we acquire,” as he puts it.