Lydia-Mary is in part based on a character in the 1930 novel Narcissus and Goldmund by the German author Herman Hesse. Although Christopher Cairns’s sculpture is not a direct embodiment of the fictional character in Hesse’s novel, Lydia-Mary possesses a complex psyche and embodies the personality of a lovely, asphyxiating maternal figure. Sculpted in clay and plaster, and later cast in bronze, Lydia-Mary was completed in 1983. During the 1980’s Cairns created several large bronze sculptures of the female figure. These works are rendered in flat planes with an interplay of convex and concave forms. Examples include Lilith, Black Madonna, Angel with Nails, Misericordia, and Synagogue. Like Lydia-Mary, these sculptures possess a deep significance, one that goes beyond the aesthetic beauty of the piece. Cairns’s earlier as well as more recent works reflect an ongoing interest in more conventional and time-honored themes. The artist states, “The quest for some personal religious framework permeates the themes and attitudes of my sculpture. Present also are recurring psychological determinants. The sculptures draw on a thematic pool that has fed many artists from the past: love, death, metamorphosis, redemption, violence, and so on.” Intoxicatingly beautiful and possessing a deep and complex psyche, Christopher Cairns’ Black Madonna indeed reigns powerful. Emerging from a group of large figurative bronzes created in the 1980s, Black Madonna (1984) shares similar characteristics to Mary Lydia (1983), another work by Cairns on view outdoors at Grounds For Sculpture. Like Mary Lydia, Black Madonna possesses a sense of silent, meditative mystery. Cairns’ figurative bronzes are often the vehicles for his emphatic thoughts on the human condition (death, love, and suffering) and his admiration for the female form. Black Madonna’s deep psychic presence is reinforced by a strong sculptural aesthetic, as Cairns puts a Cubist twist on traditional classicism, rendering the figure in flat planes with an interplay of convex and concave forms. To even further understand the depth of meaning behind the sculpted solids and voids, one needs only to consider the title given to this work.
Born in 1942 in Wilmington, DE, Cairns attended Oberlin College, OH where he received a degree in English Literature in 1965. He subsequently studied sculpture at Tulane University in New Orleans where he earned an MFA in 1970. Cairns has been working and teaching at Haverford College, PA since 1970 and recently received the distinction of Emeriti Professor. When not teaching at the college Cairns is working at his studio, a former fire station in Havertown, PA where over 100 sculptures in varying stages of completion are on view. Visitors can tour the artist’s studio throughout the year.
Exhibiting sculpture for over 35 years, his work was most recently shown at the Cantor-Fitzgerald Gallery at Haverford College and the 40th Anniversary Show of the NY Studio School. His works are featured in the collections of the Berman Museum, Collegeville, PA; the Morris Arboretum, Chestnut Hill, PA; Haverford College, Haverford, PA; LaSalle University Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA; Hamline University, St. Paul, MN; and numerous private collections. More information about this artist can be found at http://www.christophercairns.com/. Other works by Christopher Cairns currently on view in the sculpture park: Black Madonna, 1984
cast bronze, 3/7
92” x 19” x 16”
Courtesy of The Sculpture Foundation, Inc.
Gift of Joan L Tobias, in memory of Isaac Witkin | | 
Lydia-Mary, 1982-83
cast bronze, 1/9
65" x 16" x 16"
Courtesy of The Sculpture Foundation, Inc.
Gift of Joyce and J. Seward Johnson, Jr.
Photo: Ricardo Barros.com |
