IN BODY:
The Figure Transformed

Works by
Stacy Latt Savage
Shane Savage-Rumbaugh

September 9 – October 1, 2004

Along with depictions of the landscape, the figure is one of our most enduring subjects and representations of the body are found scattered throughout the history of art and culture. From almost the beginning of recorded time people have drawn images of themselves on cave walls and representations of the body etched and carved into stone or sculpted from clay have been discovered almost everywhere.

From Egyptian and Sumerian depictions of idealized form, through the Greek and Roman study of perfection through harmonious proportion, to the medievalist’s symbolic and spiritual transformation of the body into a vessel of the soul, the body has long been a primary source to help define a culture and its sensibilities.

Depictions of the body have also been expressed in anthropomorphic terms; and many figurative artifacts contain both subjective and objective aspects of the body creating objects that are neither a realistic rendering of the figure nor a wholly abstracted image but a little of both.

References to the figure, in modern and contemporary narrative imagery, have often been used as a metaphor or allegory to help shape or question order and meaning. The evolution of the ways the figure is represented in art and culture has also played pivotal a role in more recent times when the portrayal of the body can be politically and ideologically motivated to reflect or react to broader societal concerns.

This exhibition provides an opportunity to explore the works of sculptor Stacy Latt Savage and painter Shane Savage-Rumbaugh. Each artist directly references the figure in their work and most often their models are themselves. Their use of the body to examine the depths of self reflects their concerns regarding the human condition. Through their works they ask questions about the essential complexities of emotion and psychology, the inescapable laws of nature and the importance of paying attention to the world around them.

Stacy Latt Savage
“My sculptures are preserved fragments of a particular experience or state-of-being. I translate personal experience into artwork that intends to communicate universally. My sculptures are visual metaphors for the essence of an emotion or the, often, private aspects of human psychology like fear, loneliness or desire. Each sculpture ultimately embodies a specific tone and residue. The inherent complexity of human emotion has led me to explore the symbolic potential of pattern and texture. Often the figure itself is physically altered or transformed by its predicament. The skin of each sculpture is manifestation of how that form feels, as if the internal has seeped to the surface.”

Savage holds an M.F.A. in sculpture from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Recent exhibitions include Contemporary Sculpture at Chesterwood, Chesterwood Museum, Stockbridge, MA, 2003; Four Elements, Forest Hills Cemetery, Boston, MA, 2003; Fire to Form, Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ, 2003 and Terrors and Wonders, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA, 2001. Awards include the Healy Endowment Grant, UMASS Dartmouth, 2001; a commission with the Holocaust Memorial for the Jewish Federation of New Bedford, MA, 1997-98 and a Community Arts Partnership Grant, Ithaca, NY, 1996.

Shane Savage-Rumbaugh
“The painting impulse is always with me, and it’s always enriching my experience of the world. Painting has magnified my awareness of structures and patterns. Knowledge tends to deepen mystery for me, mostly because the more I learn; the more I realize there is to know. As I move through life I feel as if I am always painting. I notice relationships (visual, social, structural) and systems at work. There are so many echoes if one makes an effort to notice them – like the great double spiraling pattern which is expressed in galactic swirling as well as satellite photographs of hurricanes, hair tracts on the tops of heads, fingerprints, the symbol of Yin and Yang, and the swirling turbulence of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”. Painting has helped me become more active, involved and alive.”

Savage-Rumbaugh received an M.F.A. in painting from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York and is currently Assistant Professor at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. He has recently been awarded residency grants to Rowe Conference Center, Rowe, MA and Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine. He also was the recipient in 1996 of the John Hartwell Award for Graduate Achievement in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, Cornell University. Recent exhibitions include The Figure Now, Westport Arts Center, Westport, Connecticut, 2004; Mute, Anne Arundel College, Arnold, MD, 2003; Lustrus Lustrum, Artworks Gallery, New Bedford, MA, 2002 and National Competition Exhibition, First Street Gallery, New York, NY, 2000.