Aris Georgiades

Artist Statement:

For many years my sculptural objects have been made up of common materials. Some of the objects use material that has been salvaged from one life and given another. Often the materials are reclaimed architectural details.  There are also works that use existing objects and re-purpose them into expressive sculptural forms. Antiquated functional objects were often built to do one task, and have been “improved” over time by making them more complicated. Most of these sculptures make reference to our continuous desire to move through life with purpose. I see these repurposed objects as a metaphor for our human need to adapt and change directions when confronted with obstacles or failures. My work from the period of five years ago contemplates these older objects that are altered through the inconsistent filter of memory. In my new projects and those planned for the future my selection of materials is based more on common objects that are approaching obsolescence and are of little value in their present state. All of these works have an intention or ambition to move forward or get ahead that has been redirected for one reason or another; the emotional content of this change in direction is the subject of my newer work. 
 

Actual Size Artworks is a collaborative public art team between myself and my partner Gail Simpson. This collaboration has developed over twenty-five years. We do permanent and temporary public art commissions and exhibitions. The permanent commissions sometimes take a few years to complete and involve collaborating with various professional fabricators, engineers, architects, city planners and members of a specific community. This is a very different process than creating work in one’s studio for exhibition in galleries. Our temporary projects, on the other hand, allow us more freedom of subject matter as the work is on view for a limited time. The ideas that come from the temporary commissions and the individual studio work that we create often bleed over into the permanent commissions.

Artist Biography:

Aris Georgiades is an artist who maintains an individual studio practice as well as being a collaborator with the public art team Actual Size Artworks. He is currently a professor of Art/ Sculpture at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His studio work ranges from issues of male identity, labor economics, and more recently, the changing American landscape in a post-industrial economy.