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Jeremy Thomas Breathes Life (and Air) Into Steel
“To me, working in material, it’s a back-and-forth between the
artist says this, the material says that,” says sculptor Jeremy Thomas. His
inflated steel sculptures—which visually and conceptually couldn’t be further
from Koons’s
balloons—are playful entities of curiosity, process, and volume, that are as at
home in a white cube gallery as in a grassy field. Thomas prefers that they be
viewed as objects; “I really enjoy them on the floor, off the pedestal; it
definitely changes the way the viewer reacts with the piece,” he explains in a
gorgeous video that
follows him through his process. “There’s not a top and a bottom; there’s not a
side that’s more dominant than the other; they’re a complete object on all
sides; you can roll them over and they have just as much interest to them.”
An ongoing dialogue between material, form, and the artist’s hand
reverberates within each hollow form. To create his works, Thomas employs a
process that is better known among blacksmiths than artists. Beginning with
flat sheets of steel he cuts out shapes that are geometric iterations of
circles and bends them so they can be welded together to create large hollow
forms. Thomas puts each piece into a large forge that’s heated to 2000 degrees;
as the steel becomes malleable like clay, he injects air into the forms, which
introduces an element of spontaneity, and according to the artist, is where the
real fun begins. “I know a certain form is going to create a certain wrinkle
but I don’t know exactly where that wrinkle’s going to occur along that line,”
he explains. This element of chance ensures each work is unique; each has its
own swells, divots, and folds. Finishing off the works with raw oxidized
surfaces or glossy layers of richly hued acrylics, Thomas’s process is
complete: the steel loses its weight and the works are spirited objects of
levity. While Thomas admits he won’t always work this way, for the time being
he says, “I just keep inflating until I just can’t come up with any more ideas
to inflate.”
