University Museums, Iowa State University
Artist Statement
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A majority of my work over the past 30 plus years has been focused on public art, especially monumental
sculpture, including a number of commissioned works on the ISU campus. Being a public artist for me is
fundamentally telling the stories of others in my own voice. It is an interweaving of notions about a
particular history, place or identity expressed within my own visual sensibility. This exhibition is a segue
from my public work in that I am unbound from any external narrative to consider: no particular place,
no history (but my own) and no particular “public” to consider.
My materials and processes are elemental and direct. These works, whether wall based or three
dimensional are primarily made from sheet steel and bronze, or include drawings done on the surfaces
with various oxides. It is often the simple timeless act of drawing to represent a perception of the world
that is key to my expression in these works.
While my subjects are largely metaphorical, the themes of this work are informed by my immediate
environment. My home and studio are on a hill in the midst of gently rolling farmland in NE Iowa and my
large studio doors open to that expansive horizon many miles away. Evidence of displacement is revealed
everywhere in the landscape, whether natural or human caused, and I see that as a global constant
throughout time. Geologic forces, shifts in climate and human activity drive the ensuing extinctions,
migrations, and evolution, effectively blurring any perception of the “here and now” as an absolute. It is
that context that I project this work onto. I often look out and wonder what lies between the here and now,
and the there and then. Change, loss, place, time, and memory, are essentially indistinguishable from
each other and giving form to that experience is a way to ground that reality for me.
Tom Stancliffe, artist statement
