MUSÉ
Austen Brantley
Austen Brantley (Detroit, United States) makes sculptures and installations. With Plato's allegory of the cave mind, Brantley creates work through labour-intensive processes which can be seen explicitly as a personal exorcism ritual. They are inspired by a nineteenth-century tradition of works, in whihc an ideal 'Fulfilled Absence' was seen as the pinnacle.
Artist Statement
Austen Brantley often creates the women in clay that he wishes were in his everyday life. That might inspire him and still him away from mundane experiences. His pieces become a metaphor for sirens that steal him as an escape from modern reality into a world with endless possibilities and fantastical dreamscapes. His new series of work rebels and accentuates these nymph fantasies with sculptures of women seducing the viewer to escape as well.