Solo Show at the Oakland Museum of California Sculpture Court
"I consider my furniture to be sculptural and my sculpture to be curiously functional; it is in the tension between these two aspects that I find my aesthetic and conceptual focus."
- Shawn E. HibmaCronan
Artist and furniture designer Shawn E. HibmaCronan uses everyday materials and furniture-making techniques to create large scale wood and steel sculpture, wheeled vehicles, movable furniture and sculptural light fixtures. In each case, material and mechanism work together in a transparent, obvious way — blurring the distinction between form and function.
These furniture/art pieces reclaim ordinary objects, which in their new incarnations practically beg for audience participation. The individual pieces don’t just imply interactivity, they are constructed to fulfill the artist’s own particular utilitarian requirements. HibmaCronan leaves the mechanical nature of the sculptures visible and the materials “as is,” interweaving the aesthetics with the meaning of the work. The intended functionality of these pieces, combined with their sculptural nature, offer the audience a view that questions the line between craft and contemporary art.
- Carin Adams,
Associate Curator
The Oakland Museum of California
- Shawn E. HibmaCronan
Artist and furniture designer Shawn E. HibmaCronan uses everyday materials and furniture-making techniques to create large scale wood and steel sculpture, wheeled vehicles, movable furniture and sculptural light fixtures. In each case, material and mechanism work together in a transparent, obvious way — blurring the distinction between form and function.
These furniture/art pieces reclaim ordinary objects, which in their new incarnations practically beg for audience participation. The individual pieces don’t just imply interactivity, they are constructed to fulfill the artist’s own particular utilitarian requirements. HibmaCronan leaves the mechanical nature of the sculptures visible and the materials “as is,” interweaving the aesthetics with the meaning of the work. The intended functionality of these pieces, combined with their sculptural nature, offer the audience a view that questions the line between craft and contemporary art.
- Carin Adams,
Associate Curator
The Oakland Museum of California
For more work please visit www.shawnhibmacronan.com
