By Dean Poling
VALDOSTA — On a dais, in the middle of a gallery, a viewer can appreciate the wire art of Donald Kolberg.
It is apparent that he has manipulated the thin wire into the human form. Torso, hips, the curves and grooves of muscle, sinew and flesh shaped into what was once a flat piece of wire mesh. They are sculpture but, instead of marble, Kolberg’s medium is wire. Of course, with mesh, Kolberg deals with either the frontal view or a posterior view of the human form.
His deft handling of the materials can be appreciated, but it can’t be fully appreciated until the work is exhibited in a fashion where lighting causes shadows to form on walls behind the sculpture. The play of light on the porous wire makes the shadows appear to be pencil drawings etched behind the sculpture. It is a dynamic effect.
“I actually found wire art by accident more than five years ago,” Kolberg says in an artistic statement. “I was working in my studio, or more accurately, waiting for the muse, when I found myself doodling with a piece of picture wire. I was fascinated with the way it lent itself to the kind of gesture painting of human form I was exploring. I quickly jumped to aluminum and steel screening to create more forms.”
Kolberg works with models and bends the wire sheet by hand to capture the model’s pose.
“My technique developed into hand working the forms into human landscapes that reflect the intricacies of muscle and attitude,” Kolberg notes. “From here, they are manipulated in light and shadow. This creates the completed sculpture that exists in the physical world of the surface and delineation of form with the shadow that reflects the sculpture and interacts with the form creating a combined new sculpture.”
• GALLERY
Artist Donald Kolberg’s art is on exhibit in Josette’s Gallery, along with the ‘Best of Spring Into Art,’ Sallie and
Harmon Boyette Gallery; artist Al Razza’s
paintings,
Price-Campbell
Foundation Gallery; works by youngsters at Moody Air Force Base, Roberta George
Children’s Gallery.
Where: The Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts, 527 N.
Patterson St.
Run dates: Shows run through Aug. 6.
Gallery hours: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Fridays and
Saturdays; closed
Sundays and Mondays.
Admission: Free.
More information: Call 247-2787.
