Passing Through
Artist
Steve Engle
MediumStained pine
Dimensions96 x 20 x 13 in. (243.8 x 50.8 x 33 cm)
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LineSeattle City Light 1% for Art Portable Works Collection
“My wood sculptures are constructed and carved from laminated pine and painted in mixed media. By working with dry wood I can quickly make changes, cutting and regluing and experimenting with different positions and gestures.”
Engle’s parents were artists and avid collectors of sculpture from Japan, Indonesia, the South Pacific and Africa. Growing up in this environment had a profound influence on his work. He works from imagination and strives towards expressing ideas of death, rebirth and fertility in man and nature.
“Overall, both my figurative and animal sculptures deal with a mixture of sexuality and spiritual yearning. My wood sculptures are constructed and carved from laminated pine and painted in mixed media. By working with dry wood I can quickly make changes, cutting and regluing and experimenting with different positions and gestures. In the animal-headed pieces, the sexual energy is more ambiguous and understated, while in the later figurative work it becomes more overt as I use the figure as a kind of self-portrait to bring out my more personal feelings.”
Engle’s parents were artists and avid collectors of sculpture from Japan, Indonesia, the South Pacific and Africa. Growing up in this environment had a profound influence on his work. He works from imagination and strives towards expressing ideas of death, rebirth and fertility in man and nature.
“Overall, both my figurative and animal sculptures deal with a mixture of sexuality and spiritual yearning. My wood sculptures are constructed and carved from laminated pine and painted in mixed media. By working with dry wood I can quickly make changes, cutting and regluing and experimenting with different positions and gestures. In the animal-headed pieces, the sexual energy is more ambiguous and understated, while in the later figurative work it becomes more overt as I use the figure as a kind of self-portrait to bring out my more personal feelings.”
