RaZoO
GaLLeRy
Artist
Michael
Pollard Stiles.
"Metanoia-Sculptures
by Michael Pollard Stiles"
From
the Greek, "metanoia" connotes a change of mind and
heart, an altering of mind-set towards whole new ways of thinking
or acting. Metanoia is sometimes how spontaneous creativity is
achieved. If we are lucky, our metanoia drives us to new perceptions
and clearer vision.
"Metanoia-Sculptures by Michael Pollard Stiles", on
display at RaZoo
GaLLery
through May 31st, explores various themes related to transformation.
For his one-man show at Razoo Gallery, Stiles has created organic sculptures
from ceramic, wire, bamboo and other diverse elements.
The artist feels that "color, contour, rhythm, and mass bear
deep analogy to our experience of attitude, posture, inflection,
and touch." They potentially become catalysts for experiencing
metanoia, thus challenging our typical attitudes.
"Metanoia is the kind of change that you can't possibly ever
foresee yourself making," says Stiles, "That's the point,
much like waking up one morning and realizing that someone who
you absolutely detest at work, say, is really the only person
there you trust."
Following the theme of transformation, the artist sometimes fuses
the absurd
with the much-too-real to create oddly formed, but fully recognizable
human.
figures. They ask us to consider how life might be if one great
hand reached upward from our shoulders, or if our head and face
were better placed nearer another part of anatomy also held in
high regard.
Sometimes, as the imagination quickens, the sculptures dissolve
into other forms. Other times, these permutations merely ask us
to think and laugh. Stiles feels that the world is "our projection
and much more anthropomorphic than we usually care to admit."
Stiles strives to incorporate an element of metanoia into his
own life as well as in his amusing, semi-surrealistic sculptures.
"As a practicing Buddhist, I am constantly reminded that
the world I see is but a tiny fraction of what it really is, and
so what I think about things is at best only functionally true."
Seeking his own real-time personal metanoia, Stiles made a series
of permutations in his own life. A native of Oxford, Ohio, Michael
has spent most of his life in New York City. He began his arts
education at DePauw University as an aspiring opera singer, but
soon left for a multifaceted career in applied art and design.
Along the way, he studied sculpture and ceramics at Parson School
of Design, and painting and art history at Fordham University.
Michael
Pollard Stiles was a founding member of Art Group for Gay and
Lesbian Artists, and also an active member of the Parkdale Village
Artists Cooperative in Toronto. Stiles has shown work at the Paz
World Gallery in Nagoya, Japan and Fordham University's Gallery
at Lincoln Center and his work hangs in many private collections
in the US, Canada and Japan. His work graced the office of the
President of the Borough Council of Manhattan, the State University
of New York, and in the corporate
offices of Ray & Berndtson / Lovas Stanley in Toronto.
For
more information on pricing, availability or commissions contact
:
RaZoo GaLLery
webmaster@razoogallery.com