Tor Archer

Through freestanding and relief sculptures, as well as mixed-media works on paper, Tor Archer brings references to religion, mythology, history, and ancient Egyptian and classical Greek and Roman culture to 21st-century viewers. Working with materials including terracotta, marble, and bronze, he focuses principally on the female figure, which he presents in a pared-down form. Archer often overlays references to nature onto these figures by crafting them out of elements shaped like twigs, leaves, and vines. “I choose the female form as a representation of the life-giving, nurturing, and eternal forces of nature,” Archer once explained. “I am inspired by direct observations from nature: the structure of branches, looking up through a canopy of trees, the way vines intertwine, the weaving of nests, layering of sedimentary rock, erosion of cliffs, crystalline structure, the general way the natural world is formed.”