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RUSSELL WRANKLE STANDS ALONE AS AN AKnST. IN a time where so much art is either overly explainable, or overly personal, Wrankle has created a highly personal art that speaks to larger human aspirations, fears and insecurities without bearing all of its mysteries. The universal is accessed through Wrankle's inner, unspoken working process. To quote the artist, "What do we do with our past? How much of it do we let define us and how much of our past influence can we control? All of us have our own stories but if we condensed them down they would be essentially the same thing: death, loss, fear, self loathing, sex and a loss of innocence."
When Wrankle speaks, you will likely be treated to one of many stories he tells. Binoculars in one piece, he will tell you, refer to the time he laid in the grass and spied a naked neighbour. The artist stops the story, however, at the moment where either the audience begins to squirm or he himself is not prepared to reveal any more. And rest assured, there is always more to the story than Wrankle tells. In the binoculars, there is all of the awkwardness of sexual awakening, inappropriate encounter and the perspective gained as an adult looking back on adolescent experiences. To tell the whole story is not only inappropriate, it is impossible. The meaning is crafted by the man and his hand in the work itself. Contained therein are the unspeakable, uncomfortable and unknowable aspects of such encounters expressed in clay pressed by fingers, not words translated into form. While the binoculars could be reduced to an icon, their form is so well calibrated and sparsely composed within the sculpture that they beg the viewer to consider them as much more.
Certain characters appear repeatedly in Wrankle's...