Winner: 2012 GCA Sculpture Competition

Esteban, 2012 (32" high), by Joseph F. Brickey

This piece was done at a week long sculpting competition at the Grand Central Academy, and took first place.  After submitting portfolios, twelve finalists were chosen to sculpt together from the same model during a 40 hour pose.  Part of the thrill of this experience was being able to witness the techniques of some truly great sculptors.  The GCA requested a statement about the experience, and this is what I submitted:

“What an honor it was to be selected to participate among such competent and dedicated sculptors! And what a privilege to be part of something so special as this great competition, hosted in a perfect setting for artistic excellence, where the room is charged with both individual determination and collective camaraderie.  Every day I felt thrilled, challenged, and pushed to be better.  I’m certain that each of us has become a better sculptor from this experience, and determined to improve even more going forward!  Thank you for cultivating this passion that we all share, the same that throughout history has propelled countless masterpieces.”

My Artist Statement

Torso Virle (detail), by Joseph F. Brickey

In the annals of art history, I wish to earn a place among that class of artists who transcend their time, who share not an age but an aesthetic, from the great masters of Antiquity to those of the Renaissance and beyond. In short, I wish to be counted among the Classicists. Not simply for matching their style, nor even their excellence, but for sharing their motivations, the ideology that begat classicism.

I believe that the physical world is patterned after the spiritual realm, and that the beauties of the earth are embedded with the truths of heaven. I believe that the principles of truth, beauty, and virtue are all manifestations of the divine, and that in the language of art they find their purest expression and finest synthesis in the conventions of classicism.

 

As an artist who loves the human figure, and believes the body is a temple, I seek to restore the sacred to the somatic, the spirit to the flesh, that figurative art may once again give place for piety, inspire reverence for that which is holy, and give voice to the divine nature common to us all.