Artbeat

In the park informally known as the Charles Heartling Sculpture Park, located northwest of the intersection of Ninth Street and Canyon Boulevard in Boulder, well-known sculptor Bill Vielehr is the subject of an outdoor exhibition titled 3-D Drawings (Search for the Mark). The exhibit, which is visible from the street, is made up of five monumental abstract sculptures grouped together near the bike path that runs along Boulder Creek. (Several of them are shown above.)

The sculptures are from Vielehr’s “Human Glyph” series, in which the artist created large-scale sculptures brought down to human size through the use of incised lines, or cutouts, to suggest drawing. Vielehr starts by creating cardboard silhouettes of the human figure that are transferred to wax sheets; he also draws and writes on the wax sheets. These sheets are then cast into panels in either bronze or aluminum, and the panels are welded together to form the sculptures. The sculptures’ surfaces are finished with polishing tools and chemically induced patinas. All of the pieces tower above viewers, with the largest standing more than eleven feet tall.

3-D Drawings, partly sponsored by the Boulder Arts Commission, will remain on display through the end of September.