push the sky — ALAN BUR JOHNSON

Push the Sky 153

65” x 64” x 2.5”

aluminum, chrome powder coat

2017

I have worked with transparent photographic imagery of insect wings for over a decade. My new sculptures, Push the Sky, incorporate segments of those organic forms, while introducing the abstracted architectural lines of airplane wings that my father designed. I suspend the skeletal frameworks he built and draw the long shadows that are cast upon the wall, then redraw and reduce the forms. I do the same with projections of insect wings I have photographed. Each drawing is reproduced in aluminum with a minimal surface finish, emphasizing shadow when mounted off the wall.

This work is as much about negative space as it is about physical form. The number in each title refers to the total number of contained voids in the completed composition. These voids function like memories, in that only an outline remains, while the details contained within are no longer accessible.

Installed on a white wall, shadows and voids take on significance, speaking of what is absent. On a dark wall, the forms take precedence, speaking of what is present. Both speak directly to the absence, and presence, of my father and our shared fascination with levity, structure and flight.