Susanne Wibroe

My first sculpture built at my Pennsylvania studio, also my largest to date, sets itself abreast the elements and invites life’s flow. Built on a hilltop in high velocity winds, she now rests awhile at the foot of the East River’s “Hell’s Gate” at the Socrates Sculpture Park, where the undulating currents run fiercest.

Wrestling scale, enveloping whirlwinds set in matter, I feel this piece reaches out to our most important challenge: human interaction. Bordering on the figurative of almost beastial instinct, the abstract convolutions seduce its surroundings into personal participation, as well as covets the intimacies embraced within. Like the Park that made rubble into rhyme, Riptide grew from slag into waves of willpower, steel strong.

“You’ve got to sing like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ll never get hurt. You’ve got to dance, dance, dance, like nobody’s watching. It’s got to come from the heart if you want it to work.”

— Guy Clark.

You’ve got to carve so that mass seems to move, fuse so that voids wave strong, turn, twist and spin to bring all into one. Reach for each other’s hand to hand onto the earth. How do you make matter convey emotion? Etch meaning into traces of time? Chisel out love to let poeple feel life? Each attempt is an adventure soft spoken, each space a passionate embrace. Let the flame form the knot to bring on the heat. Stop the Violence. Let the Loving Begin.