Canadian sculptor Troy Coulterman, first featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 27, creates colorful and surprisingly illustrative figures. Working mostly with resin and steel painted with acrylic, Coulterman’s works enhance the quirkiness of every day people. For his current exhibition at Arch Enemy Arts gallery in Philadelphia, “Full Disclosure”, Coulterman attaches geometric shapes to his subjects. In his show statement, he explains the meaning behind these strange appendages: “I chose these basic shapes because they are loaded with symbolism and have various meanings throughout different cultures. A triangle can represent future, truth or intellect, a circle can represent present, perfection or emotion and a square can represent past, destiny or beauty. Depending on who the viewer is these shapes can hold different meanings and that’s what drew them to me.” It’s a development that we first saw in Coulterman’s 2014 exhibit “Digital Handshake”, where people seemed to transform into pixel-shaped blocks. Here, these so-called anomalies have grown to affect all of his characters in different ways, even in death, as in his series of skulls. Coulterman adds, “I want the viewer to project their own experiences and create their own narrative or meaning. I do try to lead the viewer down a certain path with the titles, but ultimately the meanings for me can become malleable.”
“Full Disclosure” by Troy Coulterman is now on view at Arch Enemy Arts in Philadelphia through September 27th.
With “Sorayama Space Park by AMKK” at Central Embassy in Bangkok, the futuristic creations of Hajime Sorayama fill the space, including a lifesized aluminum Tyrannosaur. The immersive installation focused on the dinosaur-themed work of the celebrated illustrator, who rose to prominence in the 1980s for his “sexy robots” representing the timeless male gaze theory. The project marks the 5th anniversary of Central Embassy.
Blending two- and three-dimensional forms, Mark Whalen creates cerebral and absurd arrangements of the human body. Whether stacking vibrant heads or using sculpted hands to sculpt the very shapes of canvases, there’s a metatextual component in tackling the act of creating art itself.