LENOX, MA – Award-winning sculptor Michael Alfano’s latest exhibition is on display in Lilac Park and is a call for unity and racial justice. The show is a combined effort by the Wit Gallery and the town of Lenox and will be on display through the spring.
The park was chosen because is an open-air, safe space to reflect and meditate during these chaotic times. Alfano’s sculptures are representative of his social philosophies and it is his hope the exhibition will inspire proactive dialogue about inequality.
The Sculptures, with descriptions by artist Michael Alfano include:
Gates of Transcendence
This sculpture is a face, ten times larger than life, split down the middle, representing two sides to every situation. It addresses the idea of transcendence in a number of ways, which the viewer can experience from multiple views. When you face this monumental portrait, you tend to think about life as a whole and its big challenges. From behind the sculpture, you can look through the eyes, as if looking through someone else's eye, to see a different perspective. Walking through the Gates of Transcendence is like taking a symbolic journey, breaking free from the habitual facades we all sometimes adapt and into a clear, new view of life.
Turning Heads
Turning Heads rotates when viewers push a piece of the oversize face. The components of the sculpture are each of a different skin tone, just we all are comprised of ancestors from around the world, in our recent or ancient past.
Evolution
In Evolution, two oversized facing heads comprised of smaller and smaller faces, are on rails that slide towards one another. When the heads overlap, their shapes form new designs, with endless complexity of steel and shadow. The series of nested faces represents an individual's growth over time, as well as the many different selves each of us possesses. As the the faces move and mesh, the images they create represent the many possibilities when people interact. The intertwined faces can also be seen as an elaborate web of the stages of our lives.
Evolution expresses a rippling effect as well, where there is a definite impact from each of the profiles, though the outcome is uncertain. Anything we do has an effect over time, and that effects interacts with the effects from what anyone else may do, and all of those effects interact as well. It is difficult to determine what the ultimate effect of an action might be."
Michael Alfano has been sculpting philosophical pieces for more than 20 years. His art has garnered more than 70 awards. His sculptures are in private collections throughout the world and his public art is on permanent display in the United States, India and Greece.
The Wit Gallery has been a leading venue for contemporary art in the heart of the Berkshires for more than 20 years and is known for showing a diverse range of creative talent from both emerging and established artists.
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