Kate Tupper

Sibylline

Portal Organism

Mantic Lens

Mirage Eye

In many stories, an enchanted object is linked to transformation, healing, opening, and connection.

Luminous 3-D botanical. Ethereal obscurity. Crystal, barnacle, matrix technology. Fantastical dreamy components. Device of sci-fi myth. I utilize sculpture for modern day storytelling because Mythology, throughout History, helped humans make sense of their world. I strive to do the same with ours. 

I use organic visual elements in an attempt to connect us to the Earth; to keep the work grounded and relevant. These details are what I usually consider to be the tangible part of the sculpture … the real touchable. I take cues from anything in my world whose form fits the feeling, the story I am attempting to tell. The landscape and lifestyles of flora and the geography surrounding us, absorbing their visual information and converting it into fractal geometry-based patterns. Wound with inspired and invented symbolism.

There’s an underwritten code in matter. Waves in spirals. A drama to the physical attributes of plants: branches branching, colour to call attention.

Nature is so often a contradiction of soft petals and thorny protection. My stories are similarly balanced with the dark and the light, tarnished silver, dark romance. Minerals, like geography, are naturally occurring sculptures and a fascinating catalogue of geometric visuals. Organic bling. Geometric elements are a nod to technology. Balls of weld represent energy. Wire work suggests systemic relationships within the sculpture. It can also represent links to the metaphysical, a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses.

Sibylline

Kate Tupper

2019

23” wide x 21” high x 5” deep

Epoxy resin and pigments within main sculpture with mild steel wire, weld, and hand-painted brackets/claws.

Photos: Lee Orr  www.leeorr.com