James Sterling Pitt
Eli Ridgway Gallery is pleased to present On A Clear Day We Were Lightning, new work by James Sterling Pitt. Conceived to exist as an object-based journal, the works stand as two- and three-dimensional interpretations of fleeting sights and experiences. Pitt aims to make the ephemeral concrete with modestly sized, relational sculpture and drawings. Often coming into being as a series of on-site field sketches, the personified images of sensory events gradually evolve from graphite and watercolor on paper to elaborately constructed wooden models.
The titles of the sculptures pay homage to the variety of encounters and perceptual shifts that occur within a calendared length of time — each individual work orchestrated as one line to a larger score. The title of the exhibition references the literal and conceptual "lightning flashes" that occur in neural activity and the formation of memory.
"Yet if such models generalize and abstract the world, Pitt's sculptures are unequivocally concrete and specific. Functioning as windows, they offer glimpses of the artist's observations and memories, many of which allude to the New Mexico landscape so familiar to him."