Douglas Bentham incorporates random scraps of metal into form and framework and skeletal structure, similar to the evolution of the human body—its bits of meteorite, mud, and water. The wonder is that, in both the human body and Bentham sculptures, unrelated pieces are intricately fitted together to work in striking unity. Bentham sculptures reveal the patterns in which these scattered elements were meant to join. These forms are their story.
Earle Toppings, March 2010
Although the artist plans to show the Centurions as a group eventually, the Tablets represents Bentham’s first full-fledged museum installation. These tablet-scaled works hark back to the Doors, where each work’s own materiality, its scale and flux of front/back, back/front offers a kind of psychological interior in the viewer’s imagination.
The twenty-seven sculptures are to be displayed on identical plinths in staggered rows, offering viewers an opportunity to walk among them at will, in either a rectangular or diagonal orientation.
