ARTISTS: Seth Koen
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Seth Koen
My latest work springs from a continued interest in sculptural line and drawing, along with an ongoing exploration of contrasts of mass and line, as with a limb to a body or tree trunk. I am interested in creating quirky, unspecific icons, new images that associate but don’t illustrate. I hope that these objects will suggest possible functions and uses and evoke personalities through their gestures.
The title of my recent show, “Narwhellian”, invokes the ominous, foreboding spirit of Orwell and the seemingly magical, mythic nature of the narwhal. This creature resides on the edges of plausibility, but it is improbably real. It seems to be some sort of transitional entity, from the whale to the narwhal to the unicorn. I have always been compelled by folklore and lost histories, the part of the map that says, “Here there are monsters.” Growing up on the seashore and spending lots of time in and on the water, I have been drawn to the idea of men at sea, whiling away the hours, mending nets, sharpening harpoons, and carving whalebone. Sometimes I feel my studio tossing on the waves.