Corban Walker graduated from the National College of Art & Design with a degree in Fine Art Sculpture in 1992. Since then he has had solo exhibitions in England, France, Chicago, New York and Slovenia and regularly at the Green on Red Gallery in Dublin. He first exhibited with Pace Wildenstein in New York in 2000, where his work was subsequently included in the gallery's 'Logical Conclusions' exhibition in the spring of 2004 and the summer group show in 2005. Recently he had an exhibition there entitled 'Grid Stack' (Figs 3&7). The artist moved to the United States in 2005 and now divides his time between Dublin and New York. He will have a solo exhibition of new sculptural work at the Green and Red Gallery in Dublin this winter.
On a recent visit to his studio near Greenwich Village in New York, I saw the space where he fabricates the glass and metal constructions, which are the essential materials of his current art practice. The drawings for the construction of the new work for Dublin were impeccably determined minimalist visions (Figs 4&5). Walker uses two types of glass: Diamante and Clear Float, which have separate and distinct characteristics in appearance and chemical make up.
What is called Diamante Glass in the US, has a dense bluish edge, with a lower iron content than normal glass, a quality reminiscent of Victorian window glass, the asymmetrical character of which is apparent in many Dublin windows from the period. Diamante Glass is cut and polished in the Czech Republic to the specifications of Corban Walker's drawings (Fig 6).
The normal or Clear Float glass, has a greenish edge, and it is the combination of these materials that instigates the parallel if conflicting integrations of such subtle materials within these works. The Diamante and Clear Float sheets used in these sculptures are exactly the same thickness, and echo elements of minimalist three-dimensional forms. In profile the cantilevered sections appear to have a separate identity as platelets, yet they are connected by a unified sense of direction, as objects in space. The interfacing characteristics of the two types of glass accentuate the dynamic tonality of the structures. The precise nature of the work illustrated in the accompanying technical drawings, defines these relations, and so there is no accidental tonality of the matrix configuration.
There is a kinetic character to the work, activated by the viewer's movement: the voids or empty spaces within the matrixes are defined by the scale and proportion of the work, in tandem with the interaction of the viewer. There is also present an inherent vulnerability to the construction of the void, not only as a transparent glass structure, with which we assume fragility and hard sharp edges, but also with our natural curiosity in attempting to access the empty space. The vulnerable nature of the sculptures contradicts the logical nature of the drawings.
The scale element of the work is an important aspect of Corban Walker's practice and reflects his relationship as a human to the environment. He is under five-feet in height and his work is concerned with exploring the relationships between scale and perceived reality as a spatial dialectic, at first with the simplicity of a chair, magnified in scale to communicate his own perplexing experience of the normal. In this new work, the added dimension of exclusion is applied to his own dynamics of movement within the void. His height precludes him from participating in the internal dynamic of the space within the structure: as the exact height of the glass panels acts as a barrier to his seeing within, except as an exploration of the exterior refracted wall space. This almost corrugated linear pattern, has an intense disconcerting effect, as the movement of light and the perceived space of the viewer is contracted and defined by a multi-directional viewpoint, by the physicality of displacement within the enclosed structures of a translucent substance, glass.
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