Jack Bordnick, Pattern (top), Mixed media/2019
Man as seen by the animals (bottom left), Mixed media/2019
Tales of the wolf (bottom right), Formed vinyl/2019
“More Beautiful and Amazing” Seton Gallery exhibition 2019-2020
A moment after stepping into Jack Bordnick’s studio, you are left wondering whether you are in the lobby of an industrial design firm or an atelier d’artiste. Maybe a bit of both. Engineering projects sit next to 3-D portraits, materials of unidentifiable origin co-habit with the mundane such as straws and plastic toys. It is all combined with great imagination and a touch of fantasy.
Jack Bordnick Statement
My sculptures incorporate surrealistic, mythological and magical imagery — often with whimsical overtones — aimed at provoking our experiences and self-reflections. Aiming to unbalance our rational minds, the predominant imagery deals mostly with facial expressions of both living and “non-living” beings, and things that speak to us in their own languages. They are textural, metallic and mixed media assemblages that have been assembled, disassembled and reassembled, becoming abstractions unto themselves.
My thoughts about Nature: “Mother Nature: We’re changing her, without her permission”
Ernest Thompson Seton Statements
Whenever travelers penetrate into remote regions where human hunters are unknown, they find the wild things half tame, little afraid of man, and inclined to stare curiously from a distance of a few paces. But very soon they learn that man is their most dangerous enemy, and fly from him as soon as he is seen. It takes a long time and much restraint to win back their confidence. (Wild Animals at Home, Foreword, 1913)
Some day I shall write a history of man as seen by the animals. (Lives of Game Animals. Vol. 1, pg. 55, 1925)
We have been fed for so many generations on tales of the Wolf’s ferocity, treachery, rapacity, cowardice, and strength, that most persons begin with a wholly wrong picture of this most interesting animal. (Lives of Game Animals, Vol. 1, pg. 319, 1925)
(Pattern, Man as seen by the animals, Wolf tales, copyright Jack Bordnick. Used by permission.)