Bruno Walpoth makes intricate human figures from wood, and it's always a treat to watch him create new life out of nothing. For each sculpture, the Italian artist begins by meeting and dealing with models. After these initial steps are completed, the bodies, lines and forms of the mysteriously attractive men and women take shape from the block of wood by means of his hands. They gaze on with indifference, glance around in suspicion, or carry blank stares. I know I've said this probably a hundred times before, but I'm continually amazed at how an artist can create something that's both unsettling and captivating.
It 's me, not the artist. Karl Arnaiz's "Duality" (currently on view at Eskinita Art Gallery ) is an invitation to ponder the complexities of life and appreciate the balance that exists even in differences. This 36 x 27-inch piece in charcoal and watercolor isn't just art that looks pretty on a wall. It's art that makes you stop, think, and maybe even re-evaluate how you see the world. Karl Arnaiz paints a meditation on death and its contrasting yet inevitable connection with life. In Duality, he explores the darker corners of the human experience. There is a certain sense of psychological imprisonment that permeates his work, as he paints a woman confined in a room with a disconnected skull floating against the wall. It shows how powerless humans are in the face of mortality and how the imminent passage of time from the woman’s face to the skull is simply nothing but a straight line, a blank, negative space on the wall, showing how nothing can obstruct death...
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