I played around with the relationship between the two pieces because that is, of course what the whole point is with the two brothers, Apollo and Dionysus.
The stones were exhibited like this at the Dalhousie building during The Humanities Postgraduate Conference.
The inspiration behind
this sculpture is Nietzsche’s ‘The Birth Of Tragedy’, a reading in my
Philosophy module. The duality of Apollo and Dionysus as suggested by Nietzsche
within Greek culture compelled me to produce a sculpture that embraced that
nature. The Apollonian character, known for form and structure is in opposition
to the Dionysian chaos and passion. Although it is the tension that holds the
two in balance which most interests me. Balance is the key to being able to
live in this world and Nietzsche believed that the ideal person was one who was
able to maintain this stability by using qualities from the opposites that are
part of human nature.
Sandstone and soapstone
are the two materials chosen and I have used them because of their diverse textural
and visual qualities. The beginning of a sculpture is visually chaotic as there
is no apparent direction or structure to the work, there is a constant refining
before a form begins to take shape, where I am using control to enable the
structure to appear. I prefer to use hand tools when carving, because then, the
act of sculpting involves me in a dialogue with the stone and I feel a kind of
transcendence from the here and now.
On their own, the two
pieces are unsteady but it is when they join and accept the other half when
balance occurs.
