Since the late 1990s, following experimental works in mediums as diverse as pottery, cement, plastic, cast metal, and glass, Canadian artist Shayne Dark has gained considerable attention for sculptures that he creates using elements found in nature—specifically, locally sourced branches, limbs, roots, and trunks of trees. Through cutting, carving, arranging, and painting, he transforms these elements into aesthetically compelling objects that are at once familiar, of this world, and otherworldly. Poised as they are between abstraction and representation, we recognize them as nature and as artifice—dualistic embodiments of the often-conflicting forces of nature and humanity. While Dark clearly appreciates the raw potency of natural forms, he imposes his artistic will on them, often by covering the arboreal matter in intensely saturated pigments at striking odds with natural coloration…see the entire article in the print version of May’s Sculpture magazine.
