An installation view of the Flo Perkins exhibition at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey.
UPDATED 03/29
Through April 18th, the indoor gallery of Grounds for Sculpture, a sculpture garden in Hamilton, New Jersey, is showcasing the playful blown-glass musings of Flo Perkins. Entitled “The Common as Uncommon” the exhibition features Perkins’ whimsical explorations of the interpersonal dynamics of bright orange traffic cones and bowling pins. By giving human emotion and gesture to inanimate, man-made objects, Perkins subverts the austerity of pure functionality of safety cones, giving them personality in a light-hearted way.
Flo Perkins, Conefrontation, 2005. Blown glass, rubber. H 11, W 20, D 10 in.
Newer work based on her studies of the Southwestern desert landscape in which she lives, is also included, providing an interesting contrast to the grounds outside the exhibition area featuring the more lush Middle Atlantic ecosystem.
Flo Perkins, Living Stone Asphalt, 2008. Blown glass, asphalt. H 7, W 9, D 8 in.
In more recent works such as Living Stone Asphalt (2008), the interplay of the natural and manmade is getting further scrutiny, and is perhaps handled with more subtelty. Here, nature takes the upper hand and reveals its power to rise out of even the most industrial material of asphalt which so often is used to pave over the natural world.
“My priority has always been the pursuit of artistic integrity, using real materials in real time to create memorable sculpture,” Perkins writes in her artists statement.
Her material choices have been commentaries on environmental issues for at least a decade, as we see explicitly in one of her older works in the exhibition, Industrial Plant (1998).
Here, the synthesis of the natural and manmade is complete, nature blooms from metal roots that resemble springs or wiring. Blooms are small lamps with references to photosynthesis, solar energy, and the power behind light of all kinds. This is work that doesn’t preach but offers subtle provocation to think, even though in Perkins’ work, such musing is often done with a smile on the face of the viewer.
Flo Perkins, Industrial Plants, 1998. Blown glass, iron, steel, bronze. H 58, W 40, D 11 in.
Editor’s Note: This post has been updated to correct the dates on Industrial Plants (1998) and Living Stone Asphalt (2008) which had originally been incorrectly reversed.