Bryan Czibesz joined The Clay Studio's Resident Artist Program in 2009 upon completion of his MFA from San Diego State University. By nature, he has always been interested in how things were made, how parts bacame a whole and how all worked together in fulfilling their function. It didn't matter if it was a building, a car, a piece of machinery or a small appliance, the desire to learn how it came to be and how it functioned fueled his curiosity and interests. He was interested in all aspects of how these things came to be, from their conception, to their design, to their making. So it is not surprising that his curiosity and his interest in these matters would extend to his studio practice. The work Bryan made while in Graduate School was either mechanized , parts of the sculpture moving, or the entire piece itself capable of traveling around a room. Others used different cutting edge technology, both computer aided design and CNC technology used in their creation. These sculptural works, conceptualized and built by Czibesz, were designed to aid humans in moving beyond pysical and mental limitations. They were made from a variety of materials including clay, one of the oldest materials known to man. Czibesz, being part of a generation of makers who have never known life without computers, embraces and incorporates this technology into his own studio practice as both as a tool and content.
In his current exhibition, Prototype, Czibesz' newest works explore issues of authorship and ownership and challenge our conventional understanding of the "handmade". Using the six simple machines of man, denying their intent, rendering them unable to function as designed, he renders them objects, truly objectified. With this work Czibesz also explores formal similarities and differences and the impact of scale, dimension, color, material choice, and presentation.
Czibesz states, "In this work, I have formalized the building blocks of technology, the lever, inclined plane, wheel and axle, pulley, wedge, and screw, as prototypes that explore the purpose of what we build in the physical world. Known as the Six Simple Machines, they represent the fundamental ways of achieving mechanical advantage over the material apart from our bodies."
" Beginning with small explorations of form, and showing a record of their making, initial handbuilt earthenware objects were imported in to the digital environment with a three-dimensional scanner, and then reproduced on a CNC (computer numeric control) prototyping machine. This process transformed the evidence of the hand through the interpretation of both the eye and the hand of a machine. "
"The machinable wax prototypes are impermanent material objects in manufacturing. In order to preserve them as a record of process, they are reproduced in vitreous porcelain as production objects, and in cast sugar as consumable objects. This progression parallels that of technology in general, which has as its ostensible goal the incremental removal of the body in relation to the material, even though the body itself is always the operative."
"Viewers are invited to explore the history of this process, from the marks of the hand through the interpretation of hand of the machine, with their own senses. I have also engaged in a reinvestigation of this process through the construction of the forms once again, as small iconic earthworks in unfired earthenware. This all serves the purpose of bringing the work back to the human body, and highlights the inherent contradictions present in technology, which is the manifestation of our ability—and desire—to transcend the limitations of our physiology."
