Rupert Norfolk

I-Beams (III), 2007

Rupert Norfolk’s floor sculpture I-Beams (III) consists of four arrayed industrial steel beams which are covered with acrylic paint. The fine, smoothly sprayed color gradients shimmer elegantly and make the massive industrial beams appear paradoxically fragile. The spray-painted surfaces of the steel simulate painterly shadow gradients, which, depending on lighting in the exhibition space, correspond with or counteract the real reflections. Here, light is an essential component of the effect. Two aspects coexist in this work: a play between sculpture as material presence on the one hand and painting as medium of space-defining illusionism on the other. I-Beams (III) oscillates between object and image, between presentation and representation, between ‘culture‘ and ‘reality.’