Raymond Wiger

Art Brokerage: Raymond Wiger American Artist: b. 1960. Earlier works in clay and stone, both abstract and figurative, serve as a basis upon which the exploration into the realm of sculpture continues. From scraps of screen from a window and a fireplace to industrial hardware cloth, the work in wire mesh advances. Through present works examine the human form, inspiration is often drawn from the fluid patterns and lines of the natural world, while subject matter is born from classical mythology or the temporal act. The sculpting process, then, is a synthesis between impression and substance; yet the transition is one from the literal to the suggestive. Above all, the works are an attempt to express the beauty found when harmony among form, motion and emotion is realized. Raymond Wiger was born in Washington, D.C. in 1960 and received his education in parochial and public schools and at the University of Maryland. From 1978 until 1992, he spent part of each year working at the Smithsonian Institution or the Library of Congress, and from 1982 through 1997 a part of each year working as a park ranger in National Parks across the United States. Each year he travels around the world living among other cultures while studying their history and art. Raymond Wiger's training in art is derived from his years of work at the Smithsonian Institution, and since the early 1980's it has been in the quiet moments and solitude of the National Parks where he has found the most conducive environment for his artistic and writing pursuits. Raymond Wiger first started working in wire mesh as a sculpting material in the late 1980's. Beginning with screen left over from repairing a window in a cabin in a national park, after six months discovered a more workable material with the same properties while sitting in front of a fireplace in Seattle, Washington. While reading the Inferno of Dante, the realization came that the type of material that would allow him to fully examine wire mesh as a medium in sculpting stood between himself and the fire. He uses no models or photographs from which to work, but relies for reference on a background of anatomical studies at the anthropology and art departments of the Smithsonian. Since the 1980's, Mr. Wiger has exhibited his work in galleries throughout the Americas and Europe, and his sculptures are to be found in collections throughout the world. His works in a contemporary medium are celebrated for their fusion of impressionism with the classical form; a transformation of the cold industrial to the fleeting sentiment; of their anonymous gestures en route to the familiar. Listings wanted.