| Clayton Thiel |
As a sculptor interpreting the figure in both its inner and outer manifestations, Clayton Thiel admits that he is always staring at people and examining the various interpretations of the human form in art. Then he makes new things that come from this looking.
Stylistically, Thiel works both “abstractly” and in ways influenced by the elemental realism of classical Greek sculpture as well as the artistic traditions of the Middle East and Asia. When encountering his tall totemic figures, for instance, the viewer is confronted by these stoic sentinels, somehow Egyptian in their timelessness.
The artist himself reflects on his latest series of powerfully evocative gigantic-scale clay heads: “I know that I’ve been greatly inspired by being with my infant grandson. His face reminds me of all styles and expressions, possessing the ideas, feelings and meanings in all my work so far. “ |
