Jozef Sumichrast's plaster sculpture, Purple and Blue, is a male form, headless and with its right lower leg gone at the knee. A sightless form, this male effigy, hands spread before its nether parts, nonetheless suggests a modesty before its examiner. Sumichrast's sculpture emanates cultic dignity and striking directness. His subject is clearly stated; salient features are prominent, often deliberately emphasized; component volumes and mass are restructured in a stylized balance, a harmony which is this artist's alone. Although there is a distinct, imaginative hand in Sumichrast's work, one feels that it would accord well if retrieved from the ancient Middle East, Assyria, or Neolithic Europe. The sculpted totem lingers in this art, and that presence endures in each viewing.
--G. Jurek Polanski |
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