Horn Holder, 2006
bronze, wood, and iron
17 x 12 x 9 inches
Louis Stern Fine Arts is pleased to present twentyhoursbeforedawn, new work by sculptor Cecilia Miguez. The exhibition opens September 14 with a reception for the artist from 6 – 9PM. The exhibition continues through December 9, 2006.
Cecilia Miguez has been measuring time lately, counting not merely the hours of the day but the flood of events, imagined and actual, which fill them. The artist’s determination to evoke her wide-eyed dreamscape is the genesis for the large-scale bronze work that gives the exhibition its title.
Composed of five equally mesmerizing tableaux, the piece plays as a rite of passage. Miguez dispatches her enigmatic female figures into settings familiar and surreal. They relax on a park bench and watch their dogs. They discover themselves possessed of alien headgear and tools of a most peculiar nature. And then there is a doorway and a solitary resolution to a lengthy procession. Or is it?
Subsequent pieces feature the artifacts of time keeping itself. Antiquated clock faces are re-invented as metal-rimmed starbursts. A lone figure inhabits the spine of a literal Book of Hours. Some works feature meticulously calibrated moveable parts, echoing the rhythms of time keeping. Aged objects adorn newer forms without the slightest contradiction. Harnessed by the artist’s magical eye, the conversation betwixt old and new has never seemed fresher.
In these bold new works Miguez’s delicate contemplation of time passing has conjured something infinitely more rare: the miracle of time stopping.
The artist’s work is included in numerous private collections and in museums such as The Long Beach Museum of Art, The Museum of Latin American Art and The Museum of Contemporary Art in Montevideo, Uruguay. Louis Stern Fine Arts represents Ms. Miguez exclusively.