TIM PRENTICE

The artist’s statement:

In my current work in kinetic sculpture, I am trying to concentrate on the movement, rather than the object. I take it as an article of faith that the air around us moves in ways which are organic, whimsical, and unpredictable. I therefore assume that if I were to abdicate the design to the wind, the work would take on these same qualities.

The engineer in me wants to minimize friction and inertia to make the air visible. The architect studies matters of scale and proportion. The navigator and sailor want to know the strength and direction of the wind. The artist wants to understand its changing shape.

Meanwhile, the child wants to play.

Who is Tim Prentice, you may ask. Well, if you don’t know, merely look outside of Long Wharf’s mainstage lobby at the kinetic sculpture carving shape and light against the wind. Click on for a bio, or just go straight to Tim’s website. (Thanks to Keith Hyatt for the heads up on this one…)

Tim Prentice, kinetic sculptor, received a Masters Degree in architecture from Yale in 1960 and founded the award-winning firm of Prentice and Chan in 1965.

Ten years later, he established a studio in Cornwall, Connecticut to design and fabricate kinetic sculpture. His corporate clients include American Express, Bank of America, Mobil, AT&T., and Hewlett-Packard. In the last few years he has completed installations in Japan, Korea, Northern Ireland, and Australia.

His work grows out of the tradition of Alexander Calder and George Rickey, but in a recent review the critic Grace Glueck stated that his work’s ‘gently assertive character is very much his own.’ He shows with Maxwell Davidson in New York, and his work is found in hundreds of private collections.