Adrian Nivola: Sculpture

August 1 - 31, 2014
Installation Views
Press Release

The Drawing Room is pleased to present "Adrian Nivola | Sculpture", an exhibition inspired by the passion, ingenuity and daring of some the world’s earliest and most adventurous aviators. Nivola’s marvelous wire constructions depict fictional, fantastical flying machines of the type that fueled the dream of flight throughout the 19th century.

 

Like drawings in space, Adrian Nivola’s delicate sculptures describe volumetric space as if flowing from the quill of a pen. Scaled to the approximate size of model airplanes, the works incorporate wire, string, found objects and pieces of linen, wood and sheet metal. Enterprising and endlessly creative, the artist transforms these humble elements into aeronautical rudders, propellers, wheels and wings with the precision of a watchmaker. His animated, gravity-defying contraptions also possess aspects of the fragile engineering that held the promise of flight, if not its realization. Despite a lifelong fear of flying, Nivola is an avid student of aviation and his scholarship in the field of aviation history is evident in these scrupulously detailed works.

 

See below for full press release.