Continuum...

Continuum reflects the themes of people and community. The sculpture follows a recent direction in the artist's work using the figure as a structural element and allowing the properties of the drawing of each of the figures to create a sense of community cohesion and well-being.

Continuum is about the climb of life and our aspirations. 

We can, after all, afford to aspire, in the effort and strain there is ease and humanity, life and pleasure. Reaching up is not inevitability flawed. We lift each other. We stride ahead and fall behind, and all of it is all of everything we are. 

We can, in the quest, conceive a level playing field and know the height is more of a mirage. With the view we see the world is flat.

The figures in Continuum are mostly separately identified. From nearby and underneath, we see the features; the rise and fall of flesh and muscle strain. Hair and face, brushing past and brushed aside. 

From further off, the figures give way to a community. The huddle succumbs to rhythm's brace. 

As we walk past or drive, the shapes move past each other and interact again. Seen through the figures is a flicker of water on the bay.

In this sculpture, the figure forms a structural element and the properties of the figures create a sense of community, cooperation and well-being. They configure in no specific relationship with gravity or the ground but are not wandering without purpose or intent. They are employed in various uman activities such as lying down or walking, talking together, moving to a particular place or to nowhere in particular.

There is no sense intended of an 'ideal' vertical aspiration or any philosophical position other than to reflect a broad human condition of being alive.

The figures are not unified by race, age or issue and are not overtly fighting or loving. They are not bound by ideology or religion. There is a sense of happy emptiness, tranquility and even silence. There is an ease of being together without condition or expectation. There qualities have created the shapes of the figures which can be viewed with a clear uninterrupted backdrop but also work when they are back-dropped by other cut-outs. This produces a meshing and density. The eye is invited to work, to disentangle the shapes to find the image or figure. The meshing can be parted, by walking between the two halves. Like a puzzle we compare them.

The work can be enjoyed at a distance and up close. You can enter it. It is large enough to have impact in relation to the scale of the surrounding architecture. It will hold the intersection and will function as a marler and meeting place.

Michael Snape 2005

Melbourne Docklands, Victoria