The surfaces of these sculptures are a diagram of connections, chromatic on one side, and mechanical on the other. The shapes, borrowed from existing theories of geometry, are periodic, which means that they can be joined and inverted in combinations that could extend infinitely. If you choose to think about sculpture like a theatre, one surface becomes a proscenium and the other side is backstage. This is the same hierarchical way of thinking that helps make sense of the complex assemblage of surfaces and colours that form a streetscape. I made these sculptures because I wanted to see what happens when construction is turned inside out.
For me, there is always meaning to be found in the way that things are made. I decided to work with the oversized nuts and bolts used to connect the steel columns and beams that configure our cities. You can find the same hardware in a sculpture by, say, Alexander Calder, carefully placed but mostly left in silence. I would argue that a nut and bolt still has something to say if you listen carefully. We’re reminded of practical matters, of modularity, of permanence, of gravity and the jobs that have to contend with it. Think of hardware as an index of labor.
My neighbor, a builder, asked where I salvaged the components I use to make my work, imagining urban relics, cut with a plasma torch from a strange future. His question points to the authority that comes with the language of steelwork, but in truth these objects are sculpted rather than engineered, via the industrial cosplay that I perform in my studio. This is the gap I like to work in, between what something is and how it appears.
– James Angus, September 2025
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