Somers, Bart

Netherlands, 1958

Sculptures

Bart: “Every time I have the feeling, as if it is the most natural thing in the world that I can bend that unruly steel to my will. As if I’m sculpting with the forging hammer and painting with my cutting torch. But that’s how it feels; When I’m at it, I’ll give anything for that iron. I will literally and figuratively go through fire for it. Because I am kind to the iron, the iron is kind to me.”

Bart uses a modern, sleek interplay of lines in unruly steel. The red-brown rust color is due to the use of Corten steel, a material of this time. Bart also makes sculptures of high-gloss stainless steel, in the same modern style. In this material, his images seem almost transparent as they blend into the background. The clean lines tell the story, because the artist omits all the details. It is figuration with maximum abstraction, which is perfectly balanced. It is impossible to omit more and with less he would do the image short.