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About Artist:
Photograph on metal. Original artwork by Mary Wagner. Zoomorphic #4. Male nude. 20" by 48". Printed on metal. Very heavy. Local pickup is preferred. We will entertain offers. (It's supposed to be dark). Support on back for hanging. In her photographs Mary Wagner uses the human body to explore a range of issues from psychological to art historical to religious — and to make those issues seem essentially the same, whatever age they come from.
Wagner prints her images of the male on metal (steel or copper) that has an aged appearance, so the images seem to come at us out of the past. They might be early photographs, or portions of renaissance frescoes, or even wall paintings from more ancient sites.
Their deliberately murky, worn appearance, together with the lack of facial features, removes them from the realm of specific time or place. The bodies’ nudity and their poses, suggesting states from vulnerable to agonized, establish psychological presences with which the viewer can find identity.
The kneeling figure in Wagner’s “Zoomorphic Effigy 4” might be performing a religious penance, or debasing themselves for love, or being subjected to torture, or going through some kind of withdrawal.
By creating anonymous figures and giving them generalized poses, Wagner makes them distanced and didactic rather than immediate and specific — somewhat like a play in which the characters symbolize ideas rather than live as individuals. But her works gain force from the physicality of the material — printing on steel gives them a sculptural solidity that reinforces the corporeal, tactile presence of the figures themselves.
Mary Wagner
Zoomorphic Effigy 4
- 1995
- Dimensions: 20" x 48" x 5"
- Fine Art Category: mixed media
- Medium:
- Origin: USA
- Price: $3,500.00 USD
