August 30th, 2012 by Dave Eisenberg
When we think of metal, we think of extremes. It’s either cold or piping hot. It’s either jagged or smooth. The one definitive characteristic of metal, it seems, is that it’s industrial. We don’t often think of sweeping rural landscapes and soft breezes pushing and pulling at blades of grass in a Midwestern country side when we think of metal. But when local sculptor Gillian Christy showcases Waves of Grain, her first Boston exhibition, which will be at theBoston Sculptors Gallery in the SOWA district from September 5 to October 7, spectators will get a taste of rural life in her metallic work.
“I’m originally from Iowa,” she said. “This Midwest imagery is something that I’ve always kind of reminisced about, while thinking about home and where I came from. When I think of home, I think of something warm and soft so I’m constantly thinking of that dynamic as well.”
Of course, there’s the dichotomy between gender and subject here as well. Metal just inherently is something we deem almost masculine as a fabric, much the way we might deem satin feminine.
“You know, obviously I’m a woman, so the idea of treating metal with this kind of genteel feminine quality, is something that has this nice parallel. How do you make something cold and hard into something warm?”
She hasn’t posted photographs of the work that will be featured, though she hinted that one piece (every pice as a whole will be at least 8 feet high or wide) will be of an upside down grain bin with paper floating around it, as well as one with 640 blades of metallic grass, a play on movement.
“There’s a lot of repetition but this kind of energetic movement of metal that you don’t normally see when you think of sculptures,” she added.
Her studio is in Rhode Island for now, but as she’s been living in Boston for a while, she’s looking to find a new art space to call home in the Hub as well.
While this is her first exhibition in Boston, you very well may have seen work before and not even known it. She’s created work for the NFL on CBS, as well as the W Hotel. And as a new member of the Boston Sculptors Gallery, she won’t soon go away, as members provide exhibitions every two years.
“An exhibition every two years, that’s a commitment, that’s making a lot of work,” she said. “You know, I’ve had success in the public art world and I was ready to make something that fit in the gallery… It’s just different type of work.”
Check out some of her art here, and scope the video below to see her at work as preview of her SOWA debut.
