Will Clift by Art Gallery Publication

Will Clift

ill Clift has a sculptor’s eye for elegant form, the technical ability to make the complex simple, and the engineering skills to balance both traits within a precariously cantilevered, yet miraculously stable, work. Clift’s years of balancing building blocks in his childhood home; those spent designing functional furniture in high

school; as well as those immersed within Stanford University’s intellectual melting-pot, where he acquired sophisticated machine-shop skills, entrepreneurial skills, and two degrees combining engineering, psychology, design, and management, have all informed this young artist’s aesthetic sense and sculptural agility.

In looking at any Clift sculpture, one immediately perceives the artist’s identification with, as well as his evolution from, two great 20th-century American artists. Alexander Calder and George Rickey were both similarly trained in physics and engineering and both have long been recognized as masters of sculptural innovation in their use of materials, their revolutionary conceptualizations of space and movement, and their lyrical aesthetic. Similar to these artistic predecessors, Clift is always searching for unconventional materials, using carbon fiber composites, as well as pigments and alloys developed for aerospace construction and automotive industries that enable him to fabricate his 21st-century designs. Unlike the kinetic sculptures of Calder and Rickey, the palpable sense of movement inherent in Clift’s works originates in their stability, rather than in their physical motion. His works appear as moving objects frozen in orbit or precariously poised, but firmly grounded. His sense of play, like Calder’s Circus, is felt in the assembly of the multiple pieces, as one watches Clift join each part together to create an unexpected and unbelievable whole. And the refinement, the geometry, and order – much like Rickey’s perfectly engineered opus - is apparent in the stability of each object and in the straightforward title of each, explaining the number of pieces or the underlying concept of the movement represented.

Will Clift’s work is an extension of this tradition of magical sculptural rhetoric. This is a result of the artist’s secure grounding in engineering, his playful imagination, and his strong aesthetic vision that is defined by minimalist grace. It is Clift’s minimalism that is so unexpected yet welcomed in a contemporary work. This is an age where the aesthetic choice is about “more,” with new technology and over-visualization in both narrative and viewpoint. Will’s sculptures are quiet and personal to the viewer; they are enigmatic rather than disturbing.

Gerald Peters Gallery is honored to offer Will Clift’s first one-man show in New York, with the strong belief that we are witnessing the beginning of an extraordinary career.

Geral d P. P et ers | Apri l 1, 2014

C irc l ing I n 2013 hardwood, carbon fiber composite, steel, black pigment 31 x 28 x 2 inches

Thr e e Pie ce s Re aching 2013 steel 19 x 50 x 2 inches

Re aching Up and Ove r 2012 wenge wood 58 x 28 x 1 1/2 inches

F our With T wo P ointing Down 2007 black walnut wood 43 x 12 x 2 inches

T wo Enclosing Form s, Ne ste d 2013 hardwood, carbon fiber composite, black pigment 31 x 24 x 10 1/2 inches

Thr e e Pie ce s Up and Out, S uspe nde d 2013 hardwood, chrome finish 10 x 54 x 2 inches

C ircul ar F orm in T e n Pi e c e s 2013 wenge wood, steel 36 x 35 x 2 inches

Ove r, Large 2014 hardwood, carbon fiber composite, steel, white pigment 55 x 104 x 5 inches

Cur ling Up an d Ov er 2014 hardwood, carbon fiber composite, steel, black pigment 32 1/2 x 32 x 2 inches

Enc l osing F orm , T hr e e V e rtica l s 2013 wenge wood 30 x 10 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches

Thr e e Inte rse cting Ne ar the Ce nte r 2010 hardwood, aluminum and brass alloy 39 x 29 x 3/4 inches

Enclosing Form , One Enclosing T wo 2013 hardwood, carbon fiber composite, aluminum and nickel-silver alloy 13 1/2 x 37 x 2 inches

I n an d Ov e r 2012 wenge wood 24 x 30 x 2 inches

T wo Form s S upporting Each Othe r 2014 hardwood, carbon fiber composite, black pigment 52 x 39 x 14 inches

Di m inishing F or m , H ori z onta l 2012 black walnut wood 9 x 47 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches

T wo Roun d Form s, Stacke d 2013 hardwood, carbon fiber composite, steel, black pigment 50 x 22 x 2 inches

F our P i ec es Wav ing 2014 mahogany wood 59 1/2 x 12 x 2 inches

Eight Pi e c e s R e aching O ut F rom th e C ente r 2014 hardwood, carbon fiber composite, black pigment 46 x 46 x 1 1/2 inches

T wo Pairs , One On Top of the Othe r 2013 hardwood, carbon fiber composite, steel, aluminum and nickel-silver alloy 34 x 24 x 2 inches

C urv ing Ov e r 2012 mahogany wood 25 x 49 x 2 inches

Four Pie ce s Out and Up 2014 wenge wood 14 1/2 x 68 x 2 inches

F our U p, Ov e r , an d Down 2013 21 x 14 1/2 x 2 inches hardwood, aluminum and nickel-silver alloy

Enc l osing F orm , O n e Enc l osing T wo, S uspe nde d 2011 hardwood, white lacquer 17 x 48 x 3 inches

Enclosing Form , Thr e e Ve rtica ls, Large 2008/2013 hardwood, carbon fiber composite, steel, black pigment 72 1/2 x 26 1/2 x 3 inches

B en ding In and O ut, Large 2010/2014 hardwood, carbon fiber composite, steel, white pigment 105 x 28 x 3 inches

U p an d Down, L e ft an d R ight 2013 hardwood, aluminum and brass alloy 12 x 42 x 2 inches

Enclosing Form , Following Through 2013 hardwood, carbon fiber composite, black pigment 26 x 29 x 6 inches

T hr e e T wisting V e rtica l s 2013 hardwood, carbon fiber composite, aluminum and nickel-silver alloy 62 x 30 x 1 1/2 inches

Ov e r 2013 hardwood, carbon fiber composite, steel, black pigment 21 x 43 1/2 x 2 inches

Wi l l Cl ift | Mat eria l s

Wood was my primary material for years and years. I’ve always loved its accessibility, its organic and varied appearance, as well as its structural qualities. Over time I’ve gained a deep understanding of both its possibilities and limitations, and I worked within these for many years, only occasionally pushing the wood’s limits beyond the point of failure. Slowly I’ve become less tolerant of its limitations, as I’ve conceived of work that is more ambitious in scale and in form.

I began learning about metalwork, learning some skills myself and also speaking to fabricators and art foundries around the country. Bronze, and to a lesser extent steel, have their own set of problems for structures like mine; while the materials are much stronger than wood, their weight is a liability to this strength; limitations arise well before I would expect for a large, cantilevered form, especially one in which delicacy of structure is paramount.

To really move forward, I had to toss out the conventional toolbox of materials and techniques that one normally associates with sculpture. I returned to lessons learned in my university days, in courses in engineering and business, and I began to look outside of the fine art industry for answers. I borrowed from aerospace, construction, and automotive industries, experimenting, practicing, and refining until I had an entirely new way of making sculpture, one that is proving extremely effective and adaptable, one that I’m certain will constantly evolve from here as my needs change and as other materials and processes become available.

I start with small amounts of steel rod and/or sheet in the most vulnerable areas of the form — around its joints. This is like a skeleton. I embed this in a second material, like wood or high-density polyurethane, which in turn establishes the overall shape of the sculpture but has little effect on strength. On top of this, like a skin, I lay up one or more layers of carbon fiber composite, an extremely strong, long-lasting material — pure carbon, woven into a ‘cloth’ and held in place by an industrial epoxy. This is really the key to the overall structural resilience of a sculpture, much like an exoskeleton on a grasshopper. Lastly, to protect the surface of the materials beneath, and to give a clean finish, from commercial architecture I adapted innovative, resilient coatings such as suspended nanoparticle solutions and high-end paints which act as armor on top of the sculpture, protecting the finished work from everything from scratch marks to damage from ultraviolet radiation.

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All images ÂŠ 2014 Will Clift, courtesy Gerald Peters Gallery. ÂŠ 2014 Gerald Peters Gallery. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, including photocopying, recording or information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.