Gage Prentiss

If you had to find a category for my art you may try Modern Figurative Surrealism. I have always been fascinated by the figure, not only by its beauty, but by its ability to communicate. In face, form and gesture the human form as a whole not only speaks to our physical senses but also to deeper senses, instinctual and truthful. The human form clothed or not, is ripe with symbolism, drama, philosophy, emotion, on and on and on. There is no end to its language.

Sculpture is a bridge I use to connect the phantasms of my subconscious with the reality of waking life. Most, if not all of my work, stems from dreams I have had and remembered. While asleep the mind is not fettered by logic or reason. It takes all it has learned throughout the day and the lifetime of the dreamer and weaves it into a dialog which is half psychology and half fantasy. It is the dreamer who awakens and attempts to make sense of it. There is so much to experience and learn from the twilight of consciousness, when the mind tries to limit the limitless and give shape to the protean. As a sculptor I take what I have witnessed and give it form. I take the fading photograph of a dream and bind it to steel through fire, electricity and forge.

I consider my work very personal, almost a self portrait. Paradoxically it is also a mirror, reflecting the viewer%u2019s own mind and perceptions back at them. Sometimes I am afraid of what others might think of it, or eager. Sometimes I feel beautiful and sometimes ugly. My art is an extension of my personality and thoughts, good or bad. My main concern is not entertainment, but communication. I want others to experience where my mind has been, what I have felt and wondered, suffered and enjoyed. Each piece is a Frankenstein of pieced together memory and soul, a dialog between me and you. When I am gone and an archeologist pulls one of my pieces from the earth I want him to connect with me through the ages, instinctively as one human gazing at another.