Artist’s Statement: Reiner Mährlein

Inside II, 2003

Bronze, 1/1

4 x 3 1/3 x 4 in.

$ 1, 450

SURFACE – MASS – SPACE --

My sculptural works are constructed from the artificially made material steel and the primeval, natural material stone, especially granite and similar liquid-turned-stone from deep underneath the earth’s surface. These materials and the relationship between them create spatial tension -- a contest, as it were, between conflict and togetherness.

In my sculptures in Germany, the interaction between the three-dimensional objects made from welded flat steel plates and the stones’ mass creates varying spatial and architectural environments. In these situations, the steel plates, because of their particular properties, keep their flat-surface qualities, which is accentuated by the linear, often frame-like patterns of the welded seams. The stone mass, on the other hand, with its rough surface and relief structure, always intervenes in the space.

My sculptural work here at Lewis & Clark is different in that the steel beams don’t have the steel plates’ flatness but have instead substantial mass, like the stones. As such, the beams, too, intervene in the space. I made the sculptures here in Columbia, as part of the City Garage Project earlier this year. As such, I worked with whatever materials I could get from the remnants of the old City Garage on Gervais Street. While still working with steel and granite, I adjusted my concept to the shape and presence of this particular form of steel: beams.

In my print work, too, the fundamental principle in sculpture of the relationship between surface, mass, and space is the key element.

For my prints, I use the partly rusty surface of sheet metal that I shape with a cutting torch and work on with welding rods. I press the metal’s surface into the paper. Next, I use pieces of stone, broken from larger pieces with a wedge, to emboss the paper. I press the paper onto the stone surfaces. The stones’ grain and drill tracks create an embossed relief pattern in the paper. The imprints from the steel plates interact with the embossing from the stone in much the same way that the elements of my sculptures in Germany do. The three-dimensionality of the prints is not just suggested through linear patterns, surface, and color values; the embossed paper actually intervenes in a sculptural fashion in the surroundings. But contrary to the stone in my sculpture, where it is a heavy mass, the stone in my prints seems to float.

In my prints, the materials are connected in a reduced and concentrated form, but at the same time they retain their own life and mystery.