Geoffry Gorman

Geoffrey Gorman is an artist that I fell in love with the first time I laid eyes on his work. (I know, I love a lot of them don't I!) The first image of his work I remember seeing was of a cat made of sticks and wrapped in canvas, fastened together with strips of leather and screws that left rust marks in a pattern that reminded me of an ocelot. For the past couple of years I have been watching his work evolve into more and more "sophisticated" forms. I am interested to see that his work has progressed but wonder exactly how it happened and you'll see what I mean in a moment.

Gorman's early works were representations of animals who were free unto themselves, exhibiting their own personalities. I was able to easily imagine them with a companion, playing in the kitchen or fantasize about seeing them wandering the desert at dusk. Then his animals began appearing on pedestals, not tall ones but they were definitely no longer free. They were fastened to a block of some kind and became objects, somehow less animated than the earlier spirits he created. Gorman then pierced them and lifted them up off the ground as if stuck on pins in an invisible specimen box to be adored and preserved like perfectly preserved specimens of museum taxidermy. I wonder if this was a conscious decision on his part or if is has just been the result of a free spirited artist attempting to conform to some gallery owners idea of what a "contemporary art sculpture" should  be. Personally, I hope to see his creatures break free from the platforms, pedestals, and specimen pins and return to their wild animated state, (which they are starting to do). That was what really drew me to them in the the first place; the idea that one day I might meet up with one of his creatures quite unexpectedly on a walk in the woods...