Aug 30, 2004
Miles Slater: "From Sculptures to Drawings" opens September 18th

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 27, 2004
Contact: Nancy Kiesendahl Bloch or Camilla Calhoun 845 838 1177

From the marble mountains of Pietrasanta, Italy to Beacon, New York! Miles Slater - "From Sculptures to Drawings" Opens September 18th through October 14th at Kiesendahl+Calhoun Contemporary Art in Beacon.

Miles Slater has spent the past ten years in Pietrasanta working with some of the most prestigious artisans in the world at marble sculpture studios that have produced works by Botero and Moore. The town, nestled in the Apuana Alps of Tuscany, rediscovered by Michelangelo in the 1400s, has for centuries continued to lure sculptors drawn by the purity of the marble found in those mountains. 

Miles' first major work of sculpture produced in Pietrasanta, entitled "Rescue", was inspired by the famous photograph of the fireman cradling the child after the Oklahoma City bombing. It is on permanent display at the Oklahoma City Memorial Museum. His latest sculpture series to be shown in Beacon at Kiesendahl+Calhoun Contemporary Art, are abstract representations of familial bonds, both strong and graceful. These dark grey and whitish grey Bardiglio Marble pieces appear like two separate marbles joined together rather than emerging from the same block. The artist creates this dichotomy by highly polishing the marble to obtain the dark grey effect and uses a synthetic pumice stone to produce the grayish white color.
Emerging from his studies for the family sculptures, the companion drawings "Morphing to the Vanishing Point", that will also be seen at the gallery, have evolved from his study of technical, mechanical drawings. These works reveal transformation, a movement, both hard and fluid, of sensuous lines that may seem both as hard marine organisms or tender floral forms, disappearing into or emerging from the same point.
The varied nature of Miles Slater's works, which range from large abstracts to small figurative works, will be represented at the gallery, including a bronze series interpreted from the anatomical drawings of Peter Paul Rubens. 
The artist reception will be held from 5-7:30 on September 18th at Kiesendahl+Calhoun Contemporary Art.