My Museum Visit

Nancy Graves- Wheelabout
By: Brandon Litaker

I went to the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth. I choose a piece that was created by Nancy Graves called Wheelabout. This piece was very interesting to me and it stood out the most in my mind while walking through the museum. Nancy Graves likes to try combining shapes and forms you can find in nature with objects found in everyday life. She used many ordinary objects in this artwork including a c-clamp and a drainage pipe, she combined these with bronze and stainless steel to create one interesting piece of art. There are parts that resemble a bicycle, what looks like handle bars and a twisted wheel with spooks. The three wheels that are touching the ground are representative of her playful spirit. There is some empty space created inside the upper curve of the S-shape, the lower part of the s-shape has twisted wheel shape in front of it with other lines behind it. The object is not small at all, it is quite large and many odd shapes are used, which catch you a little off guard at first. It takes a few minutes to process this piece of art because is so complex. The objects are very intense bright colors, they are very warm colors very few cool colors were used. There are not a few colors used but a whole assortment of colors, which she used as another indicator of her playful spirit. The colors used were not compliments or analogous, they appear to be more randomly chosen. The texture is smooth but the twisted angles and multiple spooks on the twisted wheel make it appear rough. The curved s-shaped part of the artwork is curved but there are straight bars connecting to curved upper pieces to the chain bottom piece, this gives the artwork a balance between the two. There are handle bars that hang down from the s-shaped curves that indicate the playful spirit again. There is a pattern created using the colors painted on the chain part of the s-shape, it draws your eye even more to the artwork because you are trying to understand the all the colors. The S-shape helps to balance the object as a whole; it draws your eye across the artwork. As your eyes follow the s-shape you find more and more complexity to this art work. There are many focal points with this piece; Nancy Graves wanted people to have many focal points and changing perspectives as the looked at the artwork. There is a lot of repetition in the colors that are painted on along with many curved pieces and straight pieces. Polyurethane paint was used and it helped to add more detail to the artwork because it added more lines and depth to the artwork. This artwork was constructed using an additive process which had to take some strength considering that it is constructed of bronze and stainless steel that she had to bend and twist into the shape she liked. This art work is a very complicated piece that needs to be looked at carefully and you will continue to find more levels of complexity.