Mark C. Parsons

 

Moore Night

Moore Commission:

Charles and Judith Moore had seen Parsons' work exhibited at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, where Judith served as a curator for the American Photography Department of the Smithsonian Museum Collection. The Moore's wanted Parsons to make something for the new home they were building in Pennsylvania.

"The home is to be a legacy to their children and grandchildren," Parsons said, "The sculpture should reflect the greatness of Charles and Judith; their knowledge of music, art and culture, and the contributions they've made to Art and international Philanthropy, but to do so delicately - without dominating the setting or the natural landscape."

The development of what the artist calls a "Constructed Portrait" was founded on his numerous interactions with the clients in their New York City home. This included exercises which brought Charles and Judith together to 'play' with numbered tiles and later geometric blocks - the dimensions of which the Moore's unknowingly helped develop.

The resulting 18 foot steel sculpture was erected less than a year later. Adhering to the principals of mathematics, physics, and subjective logic, Parsons is most interested in the portrait depicting an aspect of the client's "internal rational mechanisms."

"While traditional portraiture is concerned with the way somebody looks, the Constructed Portraits Series is about the way they think. That's where the real beauty is," says Parsons.

"This is a successful piece because its scale allows the approaching viewer to appreciate the sculpture as an object - part of the landscape - yet, when as one closes in and gets near the sculpture, the assembly of geometries works less like an 'object' and more like a 'framework'- an open framework through which one looks upon the natural world."

Using that metaphor, the clients Charles and Judith Moore can be seen as the 'object' which has brought about two new generations of the Moore Family - and those children and grandchildren will see their world through the 'framework' that is the legacy of their grandparents Charles and Judith.