The Arc & The Chord
Hugh LeRoy
May 1 – July 5, 1987
Hugh LeRoy, The Arc & The Chord, 1987; wood; 33' L x 18" W x 5" H
Artist Statement
This work is comprised of blocks of wood which respond to changes in humidity and rainfall. The individual elements are connected and extend in a linear progression, each bearing hand-carved images and mounted on a painted, wooden base.
A trough is carved into the face of each element and first appears as a flat row of wooden blocks. Once rainfall accumulates in the trough and the additional grooves carved into each element, the absorption of the water causes each block to expand and press up against the bordering block, culminating in the creation of a self-bracing arch.
The resulting arc, in combination with the now exposed linear wooden base (a box-like structure sunk into the ground with only its impenetrably black top plane visible), symbolizes the eternally parallel mind states of aspiration toward understanding and the unknown as the arc rises skyward and the black base lies submerged in the ground. The connections to conscious and unconscious - or subconscious - states is reinforced through the drawn narrative carved into the blocks. Composed of a series of lyrical images (a man suspended over a cityscape, a chalice supporting the floating figure of a child, etc.), the encoded narrative incorporates personal emblems and draws on dreamlike imagery which relate a sense of passage - perhaps the portal between natural and spiritual worlds. The eventual collapse of the arc, as the water evaporates, returns the blocks to their original positions in the base.
Water, the catalyst for movement in this work, is by nature both constructive (giving life and motion to an otherwise sedentary material) and destructive (engorging each block to the point of rupture). The fluctuations in the arc created by the changing levels of water saturation serve as metaphors for those varying states between consciousness and the unconscious, which can be awakened by forces working as mysteriously as the rain that penetrates the wood's surface.
Text by artist and Cynthia DelRosso LeRoy
