Chelsea

 GalleryViews / Chelsea

 Foon Sham at Kim Foster Gallery, 529 West
 20th Street (closed May 1st)
(To view a film clip of the exhibition click here.)

Foon Sham�s sculpture has much in common with the work of Gyongy Laky, Barbara Zusman and Keith Long, all of whom use natural materials as a primary driver for their work.  As with Sham, the other artists are also sculptors. Laky utilizes vessel-like forms in her work which are construct- ed from discarded prunings.  Zusman uses muslin stained with coffee or tea, wood and foam to create anthropomorphic wall sculpture. Long treats natural elements as found objects and recon- structs them into wall sculpture. The point is that for all of these artists the natural quality of their materials is as important as the forms they create.

A distinguishing aspect of Sham�s work is that, in addition to functioning as free-standing sculpture, it is environmental and sometimes includes characteristics of installation art.  This is best represented by Squeeze, which might be described

Foon Sham, Squeeze, 2004, oak, maple, mulberry, cherry, 8.9 x 10 x 8 in

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Foon Sham (Installation View)

as the signature piece for this show.  As a piece of sculpture and given how it was created, the esthetic it suggests is akin to a child�s Lego construction.  The interlocking blocks of wood with their flat planes and hard angles imbue the piece with a wonderful rough elegance.  The tall form dominates the space to suggest a huge tree trunk without compromising the materials (as individual components ) that define it.  In a sense, Sham puts forth a twofold esthetic in which the sum is not greater than but equal to its parts.

Foon Sham, Squeeze (detail)

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