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CONTEMPORARY
ABSTRACT & FIGURATIVE
SCULPTURES

|  ABOUT  |

I attended UMass Dartmouth for undergrad and received a BFA in Sculpture, and then attended Cranbrook for graduate school and received a MFA in Ceramics.  I was lucky enough to be exposed to wonderful mentors and artists that broadened my artistic concepts and philosophies at both schools.

 

During graduate school, I began to look at the human body as a “bank of forms” from which to compose sculptures.  I was creating large ceramic capsules for souls, and by the end of my graduate career at I was streamlining the human body forms into simplified hollow 1,000 lb. forms.   I paid attention to what other artists like Henry Moore, Tony Cragg, Louise Bourgeois, Kiki Smith, and Isamu Noguchi were making and what mediums they used for creating their artworks.  As these masters influenced my concepts of creation from start to finish, the significance of material usage became evermore important in my works.

 

In 2008, as propane and natural gas prices continued to rise I was finally priced out of my familiar ceramic medium, and I eventually dismantled my 130 c.f. car kiln.  It took me two years of drawing and research to discover the full potential of polymer technology as I began to make and cast from molds.  I have continued to work figuratively, but my focus has become on a more molecular level; yet, still large-scale.  For the past eight years I have been creating biomorphic shapes that predominantly refer to the microscopic world of genetics.  My shapes are basically invented forms of genes and chromosomes that are abstract and figurative in a playful, but essential manor.  They make up my contemporary abstract & figurative sculptures.

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They make up my contemporary abstract & figurative sculptures.They make up my contemporary abstract & figurative sculptures.

Sculptor, Ralph Paquin, working on a contemporary abstract sculpture, "Y-Chromosome" from his "Genes & Chromosomes" series.

Process photo of Ralph working on what would become, "Y-Chromosome" from his "Genes & Chromosomes" series.  This series features contemporary abstract & figurative sculptures.

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