M.L. SNOWDEN ART
Amethyst Geode Arcelleon
“Snowden’s bronze summons geologic power.”
Snowden’s Amethyst Geode Arcelleon crystallizes the shattering of a massive Geode revealing states of energetic fracture. Across five glowing bronzes encrusted with natural violet gemstone crystals, the root of the sculptor’s touch can be traced through every crevice and gouge, floating and resting in various states of force. Each bronze of the collection can be linked together to conceptually re-assemble the original Geode sphere.
Amethyst Geode Grand Casement
Snowden packs bronze into a brilliantly jeweled ball; and then shatters it. For Snowden, the art of sculpture compresses elemental material that parallels phenomena undergoing the same processes on larger universal scales. Compression in the studio shapes the Amethyst Geode Grand Casement into a conceptual spherical planetoid; further compression of additional interstellar matter in the expanded cosmos contributes to transforming a planet into a star. As advanced polishing sequences of the historic Fournier Patina progress across weeks in the foundry, Snowden’s compressive sculptural technique imparts directed energy into the heart of the Geode that activates a conceptual if not an actual subsurface glow. In this work, bronze figural summaries arising from compressive forces create fields of positive and negative polarities in various states of completion.
Amethyst Geode Stabilized Fragment
Snowden’s Stabilized Fragment breaks on impact, spilling a treasure. In this second-largest section of fragmentation, natural and sculpted crystalline formations shape a glittering carpet across the interior of the Amethyst Geode Stabilized Fragment. Streaks, holes, folds, and pitched globular inclusions express the rugged terrain of Snowden’s manual creation. In this energized resting Fragment, the dichotomy of birth arising from destruction is established in the ethos of this shard that has broken from the main Casement and fallen to rest. The work embraces a host of implications ranging from life separating from the folds of a parent to viewing the Fragment as an imaginative scale model of the new continent created from Pangaea; the super continent that began to break apart 200 million years ago forming Earth’s present landmass. To the sculptor, these and other imaginative thresholds inhabit the architecture and materials of the work.
Amethyst Geode Impact Fragment
Hitting ground, Impact Fragment splinters and sprays purple gemstone crystals. Perhaps the most energized Fragment of the Arcelleon, the Impact Fragment sculpts a sheared and fallen shard. The bronze conveys the force of initial fracture, but also conveys the shock of impact as the fragment suddenly comes to land. In this localized Fragment, energy is expressed as well as absorbed through sculpted metal; through brunt impact that casts the portrait of the sculpture into the grace of its profile; through gouging, scoring and pitting the Geode shell into a richly embossed testament of sculptural action.
Amethyst Geode Inverted Fragment
Inverted Fragment shoots downward, propelled by the shock of fracture. The Geode, particularly its Inverted Fragment, forms an important intersection of liberation and free-form flight of previously imprisoned material that has been sheared off the rock-face of the Grand Central Casement. The energized muscularity of the female element has been molded by the sculptor’s hands and tools, just as a Geode cleaved by falling detritus comes to be sculpted through the assertion of larger forces. In Snowden’s view, a Geode or its Fragment whether naturally formed or sculpturally molded, is a seed that encloses the history and nature of the energies that have shaped it.
Amethyst Geode Falling Fragment
Falling Fragment buckles under rapid descent. The splitting of the atom, the fracture of the roundel of the Central Geode shell; both phenomena result in the release of energy. To the sculptor, the Amethyst Geode Arcelleon, particularly the Falling Fragment radiates a force-field of magnetic energy that physically surrounds the work. Artistically, the collection is a statement of condensed power and release; of larger ideas of hope and actuation. Across certain Native American cultures, the geode is related to the realm of dreams: to encounter a geode or one of its fragments is to be granted a fantasy. The smooth lines of polished figuration and the interplay of precious glittering amethyst cast into the bronze, create and build texture which is revealed by shattering.