British sculptor Robert Orchardson earned a Fine Art MA at Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2004. He has since exhibited his ephemeral work in London, Birmingham, Dundee, Dublin, Munich, Berlin, Rome and Chicago among other cities. Endless façade was organized in conjunction with Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.

Inspired by science fiction as well as futuristic architecture and design, Orchardson creates prop-like sculptures that, despite the materials – wood, resin and epoxy-coated steel – appear to launch themselves weightlessly through the air of the gallery spaces. Whether grounded or suspended, they are quintessentially elegant and quite magical, as if scaffolding or a falling bridge was freeze-framed.

Endless façade (2011) was created in response to Isamu Noguchi’s stage sets for the 1955 Royal Shakespeare Company production of King Lear. Noguchi’s abstract, mobile forms created a shifting landscape against which the play unfolded. Revisiting Noguchi’s designs, Orchardson constructed huge monochrome wall pieces, a jigsaw of interlocking triangular shapes, that serve as backdrops for the highly-coloured open-work structures.

www.contemporaryartgallery.ca

Mia Johnson