Margo Sawyer

Artist Statement

This new work will form structures that will lay before the viewer, creating a field of objects as if an altar of sculptural objects. Constructed and installed as if they were drawn in space, I hope they will acquire a fragile quality of beauty wonderment and awe.

Most of my large-scale projects have been aimed at placing the viewer within spaces of reflection and contemplation, where structures are visually accessible yet physically unapproachable. I have been fascinated and inspired by objects and architecture that honor the dead; these, in turn, underscore the psychological metaphors within my work. I look to the Ancient World for inspiration through the direct experience of sacred architectural structures found in Egypt, India, and Italy where the structures seen have formed the foundation of the structural and symbolic development of my sculpture.

I look at my work as a meditation onto a few main events that haunt me. The questions that surround death, loss, and love are the pulse of my work. I see my creative pattern as a spiral moving up in space, its path passing on these same experiences, yet with each revolution, I discover a different perspective from which to view these events through my work.

Margo Sawyer is a Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, Area Head of Sculpture