“Lean On Me”

“Isn’t it interesting that when making a list of that which we value the most in life, we put at the top of that list something that we cannot see: Love. But we can experience it. We can be aware of the effects of it, and we can be aware of the lack of it as well as be aware of the effects of this lack.

Lean On Me is a sculpture in my women’s series expressing the strength of two friends in a supportive relationship. They support each other, love each other, and base, brace, and reinforce each other. They also change each other.

In order to express these thoughts in form, I have sculpted the figures back to back. The colors chosen for the patina are in the warm spectrum with the different hues mixing together, each toward the other.

Neither love nor its polar opposite can be directly accessed through our five physical senses. However, the results of both the opposite and irreconcilable ends of these non-physical phenomena can be experienced.

This leads us to the one true power we have over them: choice. We have the power to choose. In these “no of the physical universe of existence” phenomena, we have the power to choose, and thus determine as well as experience the destiny of who we have chosen to be.”

The art of Southwest native Richard Pankratz is design driven. The element of Pankratz’ design can be easily recognized, even though all of the individual elements of the pieces are radically different. Pankratz refuses to be bound by either subject or media, he feels that artists must somehow find a way to express a segment of the world in which they exist, and that as they take this journey, themes should be explored continually in multi-faceted arrays of variation.