![]() ![]() 1963) converts negative space into a material object. Where Nash has shaped a hollow center, Rachel Whiteread (b. Nash’s dome of living, aging trees, with their seasons of growth and dormancy, likewise presents time itself as a medium, an object of contemplation. In Genesis, the sacred is fashioned not only by the contrast of empty and defined space, but also by time: God’s creative activities cease on the seventh day, when God rests, and in doing so creates the first Sabbath, itself a type of negative space. Just as Ash Dome is made of negative and positive forms, the creation narrative offers a vision in which light and darkness, waters above and below the dome of heaven, are brought together in a dyadic unity. However modest, this little dome invites comparisons with the firmament in Genesis. It is a space filled with possibility and expectation, inviting contemplation on the interdependence between root and branch, earth and sky, subject and object, past and future. The practical point of the pot is its space inside.” Over many years, he grafted and pruned twenty-two ash trees until their mesh of branches encompassed a void. Likewise, “around the time the idea of a ‘grown’ space was occurring to me,” he wrote recently, “I had been told that the ancient Chinese potters would hold the form of the space inside the pot in their minds and draw up the clay over that form. When he planted the circle of trees that comprise the work, he envisioned them eventually creating a “dome of space.” He was aware of previous generations of foresters in northern Wales who had planted trees in anticipation of the needs of future shipbuilders, and the idea of a ship or vessel appealed to him. Copyright and courtesy of the artist.įirst, a living sculpture, Ash Dome, begun in 1977 by David Nash (b. Because my own practice as a sculptor wades downstream from David Nash, Rachel Whiteread, and Andy Goldsworthy, I will draw from works by these three British sculptors.ĭavid Nash. I want to bring to light these scriptural holes by inviting passages from the Bible-especially the creation and exodus narratives-into conversation with works of contemporary art. As we will see (or rather, not see) the places where people encounter God, like the cleft in the rock where Moses hid, are often negative. In such spaces, the unknown and the known complement and complicate one another. They disclose possibilities beyond what we have known or experienced theologically, hermeneutically, and phenomenologically. We can read these spaces in various ways, which is precisely what makes them so compelling. ![]() Think of the space opened up by the parting of the Red Sea, for example, or of particular empty wombs and tombs which are among the most profound negative spaces in scripture. The Bible presents myriad examples of empty or bounded spaces, which it describes in palpable, visual terms, alive with meaning. The concept of negative space offers an interesting point of connection between works of art and sacred texts. ![]() “An opening framed by closure,” as theologian Belden Lane suggests, is “the first requisite to a sense of the sacred.” Somehow the dynamic between object and space pulls on us, invites us in. From a theological perspective, they can constitute gateways to the sublime, eliciting a sense of more-than. And yet attentive artists and viewers understand that negative spaces are integral to compositions, and at times even the key to understanding them. Such openings might seem simple-or a mere byproduct of the “real” object, the proper source of interest. When it comes to sculpture, this space opens up whenever a hole is made, a concave shape formed, or space left between separate objects. In visual art, the empty territory around or within an object is known as negative space-for example, the open triangle formed by the arm and torso of a figure standing with hand on hip. Composers have deployed silence, directors have cleared the stage, and poets have left as little as a word upon an empty page. THE IDEA THAT EMPTINESS, the simple absence of matter, can hold meaning has inspired creativity across cultures, in almost every conceivable medium. ![]()
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