Mark Wholey

Red Spirit is a sculpture of a figure that is there and not there. It is inspired by observing a friend, an opera singer, standing before an audience, poised, collecting her thoughts. A poignant moment between emptiness and fullness. Nothing and something. The absent figure in the sculpture is the intangible. Inscribed around the missing figure are designs and symbols of tangible, everyday life, raising the question of who we are? What makes us who we are? I wanted the work to simultaneously express contemplation and inspiration. To let the observer fill the void and identify the figure. The sculpture is made of painted high density urethane and inscribed with 24K gold leaf to energize the form.

The poem below by Mark Strand speaks to this sculpture.

Keeping Things Whole

In a field

I am the absence

of field.

This is

always the case.

Wherever I am

I am what is missing.

When I walk

I part the air

and always

the air moves in

to fill the spaces

where my body’s been.

We all have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things whole.