Vanishing Boundaries:
Sculpture by Judy Sigunick
Sculpture by Judy Sigunick
Rosalind’s Voyage, 2016, Glazed ceramic, mixed media, 18.5 x 9 x 16 inches
Photo credit: Stefan Findel
Vanishing Boundaries:
Sculpture by Judy Sigunick
Boundaries are something most of us take for granted. For instance, we accept — and assign — judgmental labels to one another: good or bad, cool or geek, rich or poor, winner or loser, black or white, man or beast. Judy Sigunick is interested in the places where those boundaries vanish — the ripples after one thing ceases to be and before another begins. It is in the details of her sculptures that borders are crossed and Sigunick collapses barriers to imagination.
In her sculpture, she often looks to Shakespeare for inspiration, as the Bard explored themes of the mutability of boundaries — often of identity, particularly gender identity. His play The Winter’s Tale — the source for many of the works on view — contains stories within stories — one boundary seamlessly flowing into another until they coalesce into a whole. It begins with a storybook marriage destroyed by jealousy, followed by a debate over whether art is an unnatural construct or a conduit for improvement, and segues to a dreamlike ending in which love conquers jealousy and forgiveness turns the tides of tragedy. The character Leontes declares, “If this be magic, let it be an art.” Shakespeare’s characters declare their truths without inhibition and the Bard remains impartial, allowing our imaginations to run free, just as Sigunick does in her work.
“Vanishing Boundaries” presents a series of Shakespeare-related sculptures reflecting the flow of transition between creation and destruction, the melding of beliefs and cultures, drawing from notions of temporality and adaptability in theatrical productions. Empathic and scientific human intervention, which blurs boundaries between species, shapes Sigunick’s ideas. Also on view are sculptures exploring the theme of elephants — an animal powerful yet endangered because of our failure to acknowledge the need for peaceful co-existence.
In selecting the works for this show, Sigunick sought to underscore the similar flow in the world shared by elephants and by Shakespeare — by all creatures large and small — as none is greater than another. We are all players on the stage of life. As the Bard famously wrote in As You Like It:
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
Pamela T. Barr