Current posting: May 20, 2005
Robert
Mirek’s wall mounted aluminum series, share an agility and strength
with the sport of boxing. Their seeming levitation and physical hovering
a few inches off the wall are counterpointed by bold, black outlines
and internal contours. Within the outer bands of black silicone that
circumscribe the thin aluminum planes, inner contour lines divide up
the interior into organic shapes and forms animated by delicate and
intricately etched patterns. The broad range of suggestive images these
floating shapes evoke—torso, head, molars, webs—attests to
the personal and humanistic origins of these industrially materialized
objects. That too is part of the harmonized dichotomy of Mirek’s
shapely, symmetric, modestly scaled series.
The emphatic boldness of shape and quirkiness of imagery constitute
yet another of the myriad opposites the work embraces. Akin to plaques,
escutcheons, or coats of arms, they are nevertheless created from one
of the twentieth century’s lightest and strongest materials–aluminum.
Stocky but monumental, simple but resonant, chromatically restrained
but faintly reflective, holistic but densely patterned, they embody
a cluster of meanings literal and metaphoric. Indeed, Mirek’s silvery
gray emblems with their allusive and elusive imagery serve to entice
and engage the viewer with their playful, witty, and occasional literary
references. Once lured in, Mirek, ever light-on-his-feet, deftly offers
up a heady combination of form and content both nimble and weighty,
ambiguous and decisive.
Dennis
Alan Nawrocki
art historian, critic
January 2002
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Robert S. Mirek STUDIO
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