Rona Pondick

Rona Pondick has been using a life cast taken from her own head since 1998. In her sculptures, she alters the heads by hand, sometimes removing the hair or skin texture, other times reshaping individual features or remodeling the form.

All of Pondick’s hybrid animal/human and tree/human sculptures use these altered heads, at scales that range from 1/4 inch to larger than life-sized. In “Mouse” and “Navel” Pondick makes the head a focal point but to very different ends. In “Mouse,” a stainless steel sculpture, the body and life-sized head appear to curl into each other, suggesting sleep or a dream state. The modeled stylized hair blankets the sculpture and mirrors its curling form.

In “Navel” Pondick’s head is small and grows out of the center of a billowing form that suggests a balloon, pillow, breast, and belly. Though cast in metal “Navel” looks both soft and porcelain-like.

The drawings on view are a part of a series where Pondick continues to distort the heads giving some Pinocchio noses and others puffed out cheeks, moving them around in an extremely plastic way. Portraiture or likeness is not her subject. In both her sculptures and drawings the artist distorts and juxtaposes forms to make them physical and emotional.

The exhibition will continue through December.
Please contact the gallery for further information.