Larry Bamburg uses natural materials to create process-based works that vacillate between living and dead, natural and manmade. For BurlsHoovesandShells on a Pedestal of Conglomerates, Bamburg pursues a process of making that is determined by an arbitrary set of rules to build a structure as tall as possible using a collection of like materials: burls, hooves and shells. Stacked without the use of fasteners or structural supports and without physically altering the materials themselves, the work is, by design, a contingent exercise in problem solving. How the groove of one material mates with the lump of another to create a balanced foundation stable enough to support a third, forces an impersonal mode of making that is ultimately subservient to the nuanced materiality of the object itself. The final manifestation can be viewed as a system developed not only to produce the sculptural stack, but also to facilitate the viewing experience and to mitigate the danger of collapse.
Bio
Larry Bamburg (b. 1974, Houston, Texas) experiments with elements of the natural world, resulting in his sculptural works. His process is rooted in discovery — he often establishes an end goal and then works backwards in figuring how it can be realized. Bamburg earned a BFA in Painting and Metalsmithing from Texas Tech University and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Bamburg received an Emerging Artist Grant from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation in New York. He was a recent artist in residence at San Antonio’s Artpace. He currently has a large scale outdoor project on display through March 2018 on New York City’s High Line titled Avian Bird’s-Eye Burl Perch Camera Trap: hinged, galvanized and grounded. He is represented by Simone Subal Gallery in NYC.