The preferred media of Plant is steel. Steel functions as an extension of his thoughts, through whom he has the most intimate relationship with and knowledge of.an article written by Carmen Line Hust
ARTICULATE #31 | April 2022 The creative drive of the American artist Frank Plant (b. 1969), is cultivated through hard work and craftsmanship. Plant thinks of his creativity as an athlete would think of their body. It’s a sport you constantly have to work with and maintain, to keep it in shape. The better shape it is in, the more it is capable of. To Plant, this is the biggest challenge for creativity in general.
The preferred media of Plant is steel. Steel functions as an extension of his thoughts, through whom he has the most intimate relationship with and knowledge of. Plant enjoys the techniques and tools that he’s used to work with. They all take part of who he is as a creative person.
The work of Plant ideally emerge on their own, rather than being pre-thought or planned. |
Of course commissions holds a different set of rules, which Plant finds more complicated due to the fact that he’s dealing with someone else’s parameters, often abstract from his own. The spontaneous emergence of an idea is what he enjoys the most - finding it fresh and more vital.
Often times, the subject of Plant is chosen for him in case of most commissions, but if he’s doing a series of work for a show and he wants a similar line of investigation, he will try and choose a theme that is open enough so as to approach it from various angles without becoming repetitive. To Plant, the key elements in creating a good composition are balance and symmetry. Even so, he sometimes go against these rules, to create a sort of visual discordance. |
Of late Plant works in a bit of a bubble, while he was influenced by many different artists for many different reasons in the past. Among others, Plant mentions the American mixed media artists Edward Keinholz (1927 - 1994) and Nancy Reddin Keinholz (1943 - 2019), the Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely (1925 - 1991), the American sculptor David Smith (1906 - 1965) and the Spanish sculptor Julio Gonzalez (1876 - 1942). Later people like the Spanish visual artist Santiago Sierra (b. 1966), the Canadian painter Jon Pylypchuck (b. 1972) are a couple contemporary artists that Plant really admire. Plant has also worked for a bit at the gallery Tres Punts in Barcelona, in which there were a group of artists also showing there that Plant admired for their work as well as their work ethic, the Spanish artists Ramon Surinyac (b. 1974), Samuel Salcedo (b. 1975) as well as Gerard Mas (b. 1976).
This article about Frank Plant takes part of the 30th magazine, ARTICULATE #31. Read, download or order your print version of the full publication below.
|