Anamnesis

Anamnesis (recollection) explores the intimate relationship between figurative sculpture, space, and the viewer. A life-size statue is placed within a specially designed architectural space (a cenotaph) that serves to animate the figure and control the experiential properties of its viewing. The male figure, drawing on the morphology of classical art, has an androgynous stance that explores the idealism of form. Placed in a cenotaph under a shaft of light from above the figure is transformed from an individual statue into a philosophical vehicle for reflection that takes its inspiration from Plato’s discussion of eidos (beauty, form, nature). The quasi-religious setting of the cenotaph—that, here, is designed to follow the founding principles of classical architecture: of symmetry and continuity, of order, of the parts resembling and completing the whole—provides a contemplative space that serves as a bridge between a corporal reality and a pure sense of being.