Lars-Erik Fisk, 2002 Rappaport Prize Winner: Sculpture

Since 1995, Lars-Erik Fisk has been turning out artworks in the form of a sphere, a shape he calls a "basic form, one that we can all understand, but is at the same time the least likely form for these subjects to assume. In combining the dissimilar, I want to find how we might recognize something by seeing it for what it is not." Using whatever organic and manmade materials are required to produce the traditional construction upon which a particular form is based, Fisk compacts the salient functional and distinctive features of the original into a concise and humorous ball in order to render it universally accessible.

Fisk studied studio art and art history at the University of Vermont, spending one semester in Rome. His works have been exhibited at the Firehouse Gallery in Burlington, VT; the Hood Museum of Art in Hanover, NH; The Robert Hull Fleming Museum in Burlington, VT; the Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge, MA; Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, NY; and Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, MN. His works currently appear on display at DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA; The Robert Hull Fleming Museum in Burlington, VT; and the Horst M. Rechelbacher Sculpture Garden in Osceola, WI. Fisk has held residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine; Sculpture Space in Utica, NY; the Contemporary Artists Center in North Adams, MA; Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, NY; and Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, MN.

At DeCordova, Fisk created the DeCordova Ball specifically for the Museum's 1999 exhibition On the Ball: The Sphere in Contemporary Sculpture. As is characteristic of most of Fisk's work, the DeCordova Ball is intended for outdoor display. It abstracts and complements the idiosyncratic architecture of the Museum by referencing the red brick exterior, arched window form, and slate turret. The structure of the ball is comprised of a steel support skeleton, which was covered with a layer of concrete and then coated in wet clay. Once dry, the bricks were individually cut by the artist, fired in a kiln as factory brick, then mortared permanently into place. Situated on the slope adjacent to the Museum stairway, the DeCordova Ball may be viewed from various perspectives and interacts with both the interior and exterior of the Museum building.