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Springboards

Texture you can feel: sculpted surfaces

Walter Oltmann (1960-) Caterpillar Suit #1, 2007 and #2, 2008, razor wire, anodized aluminium and brass wire, 118 x 59 42 cm. Seattle Art Museum

Texture you can feel: sculpted surfaces

Look at the sculptures in the gallery below. Imagine they were actually in front of you, full-sized. (Read the captions to find out how big they really are.) 

  • Jeremy Wafer (1953-) Red Oval, 2003, fibre reinforced resin and pigment, 50 x 30 x 20 cm
  • Nandipha Mntambo, Entrar, 2011, cowhide, resin, polyester mesh, waxed cord, 170.5 x 123 x 75 cm. Courtesy of SMAC Gallery
  • Walter Oltmann (1960-) Caterpillar Suit #1, 2007 and #2, 2008, razor wire, anodized aluminium and brass wire, 118 x 59 42 cm. Seattle Art Museum
  • Willem Boshoff, Blind Alphabet, (1993/4), carved wooden object in steel box inscribed with Braille, 75 x 50.5 x 35 cm. MTN Collection.

What do you imagine each sculpture would feel like if you were to touch it? Describe the texture as your fingers “feel” it in your imagination.

What materials are used? (Again, the captions can add to what you know from looking at the photographs). Are any of these materials surprising? How do each of these materials feel to the touch? What, symbolically speaking, do you think these materials might mean?

What does the sculpture make you
think about? 

Of course, the images you are looking at are photographs of objects, and not the objects themselves. To consider the way objects exist in real space, choose things in your environment that you can touch, walk around, and compare to your own body in terms of their size: even a couch, or table, helps you to imagine how a sculpture occupies space.

Springboards

Texture you can feel: sculpted surfaces

Things:

A Sense of Touch

  • Springboards: Feeling texture, seeing texture
  • Springboards: Texture you can feel: sculpted surfaces
  • Artists: Jeremy Wafer
  • Artists: Nandipha Mntambo
  • Artists: Walter Oltmann
  • Artists: Willem Boshoff
  • Activities: Exploring through touch
  • Activities: Working with clay
  • Springboards: Taking Rubbings
  • Activities: Texture Rubbings
  • Activities: Feeling with your Eyes
  • Artists: Albrecht Dürer
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