Kyle Bauer: Cardinal

Kyle Bauer’s current body of work combines metaphorical references to maritime navigation with sculptural forms that convey balance, tension, and control. These mixed media sculptures are conceived with an adherence to the formalist perspective of objects. Each sculpture exists as an honest form. The work, and Bauer’s intention in making it, is evidence of the process of breaking down selective images or objects into their purest representational forms, such as a squares, cylinders, pyramids, and rectangles.

Bauer composes his sculptures by arranging, stacking, and piling. In many cases, he lets the objects dictate their own forms. He derives pleasure from this act of construction and enjoys how this process provides multiple layers of meaning, as well as investigation through the use of color, surface, pattern, and form.

Bauer is a formalist, and looks at everything for its shape, space, and volume. His visual library and language come from his history with restoration and preservation, particularly of houses and furniture. By using singular objects and their imagery in repetition, Bauer reduces the known or recognizable images by means of texture manipulation.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website