Like the work of a master alchemist, metals come to life in a first-time solo museum exhibition by wire sculptor Noah James Saunders.
The Georgia native’s series of steel and copper wire portraits, some inspired by poetry and others lit spectacularly to produce hypnotic shadow displays, are on view at the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art, through June 8. Saunders recently joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes to share more about his wonders in wire.
The sculptor began working with wire as a child after his elementary school teacher introduced him to pipe cleaner figures. “It was like that day I knew that that’s what I wanted to do,” he said. “I went home and I destroyed every spiral-bound notebook that my parents owned.”
Thirty-five years later, wire remains his primary medium.
A turning point in his work came with the discovery of a high-powered scuba light, nicknamed “Big Blue,” that enabled him to cast crisp, legible shadows without a darkened room.
