"blackbird"
9" x 27" x 5"
wood, cast aluminum

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Thor Carlson is a New Orleans sculptor who received his B.F.A. from the University of Minnesota and his M.F.A. from Tulane University. He has worked as a Fabricator for well known New Orleans sculptors Lin Emery and Eric Ehlenberger. He currently lives and works in the Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods.

He has exhibited in a number of group shows through out the United States. This is his first solo exhibition at the gallery. 

IN HIS OWN WORDS

During my childhood growing up on a farm in the Midwest, I remember being transfixed by my father’s machinery that so easily reaped and worked the land. These steel “monsters” became part of my personal mythos…as important to me as my parents.

I am fascinated by the mechanical processes and histories of two very different worlds…the steel industry and the family farm. Both are iconic to the growth and history of the United States, yet, they are now seen as archaic, essentially, becoming obsolete in the 21st. century. I am connected to both. As a sculptor, I use the same tools and practices as a machine shop and foundry. Farming is who I am. Being a farmer’s son has shaped my entire life, and my work looks back at the machines that have shaped and cultivated the soil. These machines become deities and, sadly, grave markers for a vanishing tradition.

My work is rooted in the abstract…I believe in the visual power of abstract language. I explore the once profound relationship between man and machine, where at times, the two have been so intertwined that there was no telling them apart. This symbiotic relationship has been eroded by our plastic, disposable society. I am, at times, more of a spoke in the wheel, than the all powerful artist/creator, but, I am a guardian of this vanishing tradition of making these totemic markers.