"New Works In Metal" is a collection of intricately machined metal sculptures created by self-taught machinist sculptor Chris Bathgate. The precision works in this show are the result of the artist combining his unique metalworking style with a traditional approach to sculpture. By comb... Read more
“New Works In Metal” is a collection of intricately machined metal sculptures created by self-taught machinist sculptor Chris Bathgate. The precision works in this show are the result of the artist combining his unique metalworking style with a traditional approach to sculpture. By combining the math and logistics used in performing the complex tasks of modern machine work with a more emotive and aesthetic problem-solving ethic, Bathgate’s work shows that it is not creativity alone that drives human imagination, but also the need to solve and overcome problems lead to inspiration. Be it through the necessity of his process or arbitrary guidelines set by the artist himself, each work becomes a creative response to a series of mathematical and subjective visual parameters. The result is a precise and other worldly art object that exudes a creative logic all its own.
A Baltimore native, Bathgate has spent the last decade learning how to build, modify and operate a variety of metalworking tools and machinery. He has assembled an elaborate machine shop of repurposed and homemade machine tools, along with a multitude of other equipment and inventions in the basement studio of his Baltimore home. This exercise in utilitarian object building has fueled his artistic progress over the years and has been the catalyst behind much of his aesthetic evolution. Chris’s work was most recently featured in Popular Mechanics magazine in Russia. In 2007, he was awarded grants from the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the Creative Baltimore Grant. His works are in numerous private collections and have been exhibited in galleries across the country, from New York City to San Diego. For a preview of Chris Bathgate’s work, please visit www.chrisbathgate.com
