Aprille Best GLOVER______________________Critical Essays and Press
| Essay by Nadine Johnson, curator
Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art |
|
About Dear Angel,
Roswell sculpture transplanted from across the Atlantic
Ocean, Roswell Neighbor, by Kristina Pool. Roswell,
Georgia.Wednesday November 29, 2000
|
|
About Equilibrium
Le rendez-vous de l'équinox, Les Patriot,
by Michel GAUDET. Cagnes-sur-Mer, France. September 16, 2000.
Rencontre avec Aprille Best Glover, Nice Matin,
staff writer. Nice, France. September 9, 2000.
|
|
General
Elements inspire artist to whimsical works, Daytona
Deach News-Journal, by Susan Wright. Daytona Beach, Florida.
August 1, 1999.
Artist Profile:Aprille Best Glover - A Sacred Art, Arbus
Magazine, by Carol Chaffin, Jacksonville, Florida. Jan 1998.
|
| Correspondences Conte on Paper 22 in by 34 in 1995 |
|
Process is the essence of Aprille Best
Glover's artwork. The artistic merit of her work is clearly recognizable,
yet each piece becomes more powerful, and more interesting when
given what are literally the secrets of her work. While most
artists focus solely upon the surface, concentrating only on
the space the viewer perceives, Best Glover focuses on hidden
spaces - the invisible. The back of the canvas or the bottom
of a sculpture, spaces which are by design concealed from the
viewer, are for Best Glover secret treasures. It is in these
spaces that Best Glover leaves vestiges of her creative process
and clues to the deeper meaning of her work.
In Best Glover's clay sculpture, Memory,
a figure reclines in what appears to be a moment of tender nostalgia.
For the few who are adventurous enough to read the underside
of the base, there will be discovered the message: The things
I've forgotten cleave me in two. Both the meaning of the text
and its placement refer to the randomness of perception. Just
as we cannot always choose what we will see, we cannot choose
what will be preserved in our mind's eye.
|
There are other, less obvious, secrets
in Best Glover's work. Like subliminal advertisements encrypted
with symbolic messages, Best Glover's artwork is coded with geomantic
principles, golden sections, and Fibonacci numerology. In such
works as How
Many Angels Fit on the Head of a Pin,
Shiva II, or Angel
Magic Square, it is doubtful that the
viewer would notice that the placement of objects adheres to the
equation for the divine proportion f = (1 + 5)/2 or that the proportion
of objects to one another relates by the Fibonacci's series (1,2,3,5,8,13...).
Geometry is fundamental to the planning and execution of the work,
yet the construct isn't about math or science, rather, for Best
Glover, it is an attempt to reintegrate philosophy and religion
into art from a multicultural perspective.
Throughout her oeuvre, the principles which govern the
construction are subtly at work to convey Best Glover's sentiments
of a universal artistic truth. While the images she has been using
of late, particularly those of Shiva, may not be mainstream and universally recognizable,
the geometric division of the images into circles and squares
ultimately strips the traditionally ornate image to its essence
lending the work a sense of familiarity.
Best Glover is adamant that the equations
she uses in planning her work are common denominators for all
natural forms. "All ratios can be predicted, whether looking
at the growth of the shell of a snail or a sunflower, or a human
being." Given the capability to be a creator, Best Glover
looks to these already established principles and has discovered
what she perceives to be a truth about the creative process. Not
being able to rest until truth is resolved is certainly a component
of the human condition and a motivating factor in diving in to
uncover the secrets of Aprille Best Glover's work.
Nadine Johnson
Curator
Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art
This site and all its contents are
copyrighted ® 2000 Aprille
GLOVER. All rights reserved