Edwina Charles on the Dramatic and Exciting Sculptures by Pilikian

Edwina Charles on
The Dramatic and Exciting Sculptures by Pilikian - Part {III} - 'Mayan Chief '

Pilikian’s ' Mayan Chief ' (perhaps a Mayan weather god? A goddess? Both? Definitely a firtility one!) is precisely and remarkably that – as if an artefact made by a Mayan of that civilization! Placed in a field, it converts into a visible ruin signifying an archeological find - even a Mayan Sphinx reminiscent of its conceptual origin in ancient Egypt.

The strange folds of the clothing echoe the Italian Futurists, but vibrates specifically with the folds of Bernini's "The Ecstasy of St. Therese" - a revolutionary first in the history of sculpture. Those very folds however in Pilikian's piece, in a remarkable conceptual originality, reference equally the timeless pre-historical Grand Canyon of North America ... even more magically and unexpectedly create simultaneously quite a few iconic ... faces symbolizing old and new human cultures; there is a dog-faced clown; stuck to its side like a Janus-faced Roman sculpture, is a jolly old Father Christmas; a bulbous-nosed Scotsman; a wild Welsh Bard or Merlin the Prophet ... indeed the whole of the second half of the sculpture below the waist seems to constitute in profile a single faced head.

Pilikian’s stylistic range is astonishing – Pilikian does not fall into the trap of a single definitive style endlessly repetitive and, to quote him; “intellectually and spiritually impoverishing. I do consciously cultivate the Renaissance view identified with Leonardo da Vinci of exploring and capturing the maximal range of human artifice”.