February 3, 2012
Time & Extinction Drive Bolinas Sculptor
News

Thanks to Trevor Bach for his article,Time & Extinction Drive Bolinas Sculptor in the Point Reyes Light about Ron Garrigues and his upcoming retrospective exhibit at Varnish. From Beginning to End features 3 series of 33 works each, spanning over a quarter century of artistic endeavor.

And thanks also to Keith Bowers for this blurb on the SF Weekly page:

This Is How the World Ends
"Ron Garrigues takes a subtle approach to the most vexing of issues: overpopulation, destruction, and extinction. A person might call his artwork gruesome — especially some of his bronze sculptures. But that same person would also have to call the works beautiful, because Garrigues uses simple, refined techniques and stops short of overt gore. Cartoonish in appearance, his sculptures suggest robotic heads or stylized gas masks, with clean lines, uniform colors, and a high-gloss finish. A closer look, though, reveals dark themes. One sculpture, Overpopulation — The Mother Cannot Bear So Many, resembles a skull fashioned from a metal bowling ball. Yet its protruding jaw and mouth form a birth canal, the top of a baby’s head visible. One eye socket is occupied by the top of a smaller head, while the other contains tiny feet. Famine III is also a metal head, locked in a choking stare, with deep, empty eye sockets and a wide-open, toothless mouth. An elongated tongue holds a small mound of grain. Garrigues uses the same paradox in his 2-D works. The etching Big Bang 32 is made up of jagged lines on a black field originating from a sunburst pattern in the center. It could be a simple black-and-white abstraction, a lightning storm, or a sinister one-eyed creature worthy of War of the Worlds, dancing in joy as it destroys all it sees. Thirty-three bronze sculptures, 33 etchings, and 33 sumi ink paintings mounted on silk make up “From Beginning to End,” a retrospective that covers 33 years of work. Here’s hoping this show signifies more beginnings rather than the end."

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