Matthew SaGurney (b. 1972)

This work was exhibited in Matthew SaGurney’s solo show, Deconstructing Consciousness, at the Big Orbit Gallery in July 2001. In his artist’s statement, SaGurney referred to a long list of themes in his work, including “time, personality, ego, love, memory, language, binary systems, micro versus macro, fragility, violence, and heroic portraiture.”  He admitted that the range “resembles channel surfing” and sought a “veritable spring cleaning of the mind,” hence the title of his show. SaGurney also exhibited ceramic sculpture in the Burchfield-Penney’s Craft Art in Western New York, 2000.

SaGurney’s bulky, hooded figures appear to be bracing for extreme weather conditions, which could be viewed as a metaphor for all of life’s conditions. Every ponderous mass seems uniform, and each bears the number five. Upon closer inspection, though, you will find that within the group of nine, the central body not only turns in the opposite direction, but its facial appearance is slightly different. The artist encourages viewers to bring their own associations into play when reflecting on possible meanings of his work. One interpretation of the number five recalls Charles Demuth’s 1928 painting, I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold, which Andrew Carnduff Ritchie wrote was “a symbolic portrait of Demuth’s friend William Carlos Williams, inspired by the first line of one of the latter’s poems.”  In SaGurney’s case, the number no longer differentiates an individual person. The artist seems to suggest that identity, or subjectivity, is in danger of being lost. (Nancy Weekly, 2001)