DELAWARE ART MUSEUM 2016 Exhibition
Stephen Bruni, Director,
Delaware Art Museum
While the finished sculpture may represent recognizable or natural forms, this result is more of a byproduct or point of departure than an end in itself. Smokler consistently confronts the rigid limitations of his medium by undermining the natural properties of hardened steel. It is only through empirical understanding of the material that any philosophical issues can be addressed. Creating organic compositions from inorganic material intentionally confuses what we know with what we feel."
"Stan Smokler's sculpture is uniquely his own, but owes its fundamental expression to a spectrum of artists who find inspiration in the recycling and "rehabilitation" of found or discarded materials. Whether contemplating the cosmos in his Celestial Mapmaker series or mimicking the undersea forms of squid, mollusks, barnacles and bivalves, material and process are at the heart of his motivation and creative expression. Subject seems to unfold from the demands of shaping steel through the ·'science" of welding.
