M.L. SNOWDEN SCULPTURE
STELLAR SPHERE GROUP

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Solaris of the Celestial Array, joins with Polaris, Lunas, Meteorite, Heliocore and Sirius to form the Stellar Sphere Group as a unique statement for the art of lost wax bronze. In Solaris, through a dynamic composition, the sculptor has formed a portrait of the Earth’s Sun. Indeed, Solaris evokes the energy nucleus at the heart of the Sun in a composition emitting dramatic light rays within an energy corona. Here we are presented with a Solaris that is at once athletic, commanding and yet mythically enigmatic. Coming upon Solaris in the gallery or in the privacy of a personal collection, we are able to explore bronze that radiates gestural and spiritual energies on both actual and conceptual levels, inviting the viewer into a deeper level of contemplation of the Sun’s presence, meaning and power. With great subtlety, Snowden suggests a solar portrait that provokes intense consideration on every level of the sculpture, from the gestural hands to the coronal mass ejection that sweeps the composition in a lyrical band bringing us to Solaris’s arcoistic facial mask that conveys an intensely moving yet almost indefinable revelation.

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Solaris, as a sculptural meditation, expresses M.L. Snowden’s central idea that the very substance of humankind, stars, planetary masses and bronze are created of the same interrelated yet differently arranged elements. And yet Solaris reaches into a deep wellspring that suggests an expanded definition of the Sun suggested at other times and within other cultures. Clearly, the sculpture begins to unfold in depth as the viewer brings to Solaris his or her own personal knowledge, perception, and fantasy. Standing before Solaris we are presented with an invitation to explore a sculpture that has no twin in the history of bronze; a sculpture that beckons a new frame of reference for the Sun. Within the sculptor’s vision, the Sun as an active entity is not dislocated from our own powers and our mutual existences, promoting a feeling of reciprocity. The healing nature of the Sun; its powers to promote life on Earth and the positive qualities of solar energy are uppermost in this sculptural evocation.

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Using no models or references to express form, Snowden sculpts Solaris’s central figurative nucleus in a state of flotation. The elongation of the central figure suggests a candescent wick at the heart of combustion. The figure is set at a slightly elevated angle that rises in a dynamic charge slightly offset from the center of sculptural balance. Such subtleties of molded definition as they are uncovered point to mysteries within the sculptural vision; that the offset balances seen in Polaris and Solaris release a greater sense of dynamism in their compositions suggesting that evolving suns configure energy transmissions in off-centered patterns. In this sculpture, we can appreciate fractal patterns of jettisoning power in an intense musculature which is not only figural but gestural in spiked whorls and stripes of bronze that encompass the charged fingerprints of the sculptor as they draw and shape radiance. Above all, for the sculptor, the Sun is communicated as a living presence.

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Solaris has been sculpted by Snowden into new levels of metallurgical virtuosity. The abstract rays exhibit dramatic energy patterning and seem as if they are shaped by bursting energies alone. Solaris’s impressive bronze weight is offset by almost immaterial bands of bronze that support the sculpture. M.L. Snowden invented the protocols and specific foundry wax that makes the casting of Solaris possible. Solaris joins the Stellar Sphere Group evoking an array of radiant phenomena that can be seen with the human eye from Earth’s horizon.

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From important roots in the Paris studios of Rodin and Antonin Mercié, Snowden brings to Solaris the glowing luminous platinum Fournier Patina and the touch of the historic Rodin tools that were used to shape the dynamic planes of Solaris.