ScottFHallSculpture014

myminifactory

These pieces make up one body of work that art and design professor Scott F. Hall has been creating from 1989 to the present. Hall invented this style initially by developing large, entwined spans of figures within drawings which were up to three and a half meters wide. The drawn figures were discovered through an automatic process of additive and subtractive mark making that tended to induce pareidolia (visions conjured from the amorphous field, as in cloud reading). Once noticed in the field, each figure could be elaborated upon to bring it more fully into view. As an undergraduate sculpture major at that early time, Hall began creating equivalent 3D imagery focused on a single clay-modeled figure presented in a particular pose. This pose was usually in half-bodied form (depicted only from the pelvis upward). Throughout this three-decades-long series, Hall's sculptures show figures in a solitary and bound condition: this depiction refers directly to Existentialist philosophy which was of focal interest to him in the late 80s during the heyday of Postmodern disillusionment. Though by now Hall's philosophical outlook has moved well beyond Existentialism and Postmodernism, the stark and quietly tortured look of his figures persists for the sake of consistency. Every sculpture in this series remains untitled, which is appropriately in sync with the surrogate nature of Hall's figures. In each case, a Hall sculpture begins in white oil-based clay on a small scale, with the height of each figure ranging about 12 to 20 centimeters. Modeling is usually done entirely with the fingers. Composition of poses (i.e., the observation of persons set into poses) happens only during study phases; these always occur prior to the actual sculpting of clay. Ultimately, Hall sculpts each figure quickly and from memory. The works produced exhibit high realism but in an impressionist sense: each viewer is led to cloud read each Hall sculpture for himself or herself. Following the act of sculpting, each clay figure is turntable-scanned, cleaned of stray pixels, and converted to an STL file. If some artifacts of digital processing persist (i.e., small areas of faceting), Hall tends to accept these as markers of process. Several of Hall's earliest pieces were molded in silicone and cast in wax, plaster, or resin. The very first piece in this series exists as a one-of-a-kind lost wax bronze. It remains in the collection of the artist. Contact e-mail: Scott.Hall@ucf.edu Biography: https://svad.cah.ucf.edu/faculty-staff/?id=92