De Wain Valentine: Human Scale January 22, 2013

From the late 1960s through the late 1970s, the Colorado-born but California-based artist De Wain Valentine made large-scale sculptures in polyester resin. Their simple shapes (discs, slabs, diamonds) belie the complex processes by which they were created, as Valentine had significant technical input into the chemical composition of the new material. Most measure between six and eight feet tall, allowing for an interaction between viewer and object on equal terms. Their subtle changes of coloration and variations in translucence allow one both to see through the sculptures and to contemplate their reflective surfaces, suggesting the artist's connections with his contemporaries Robert Irwin, Bruce Nauman and James Turrell, who made use of light more explicitly in their work.