Considering scale of art

Considering scale of art | Ecency

Brendon Edwards was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1970, but spent his early childhood in Zimbabwe.
He returned to South Africa for his schooling at Michaelhouse in the Kwa-Zulu Natal Midlands and went on to study Philosophy and Logic, and The Philosophy of Aesthetics at university.

My Thoughts:
In Brendon's statement he seems reluctant to discuss the meaning of his works although he does explain a bit about his influences. I know a couple of artists that are uncomfortable about putting meaning to their work and they have various reasons for this and I respect this choice. So, I'm not going to discuss possible meaning in Brendon's work, I'm going to respect his ideas.
What I would like to discuss, using Brendon's work as example, is scale in art as well as placement of work.
Scale of work is as important a decision when creating as composition, colour or medium is and for sculptors this poses many difficulties.
*Sculptures tend to be expensive to produce considering cost of materials, the kind of tools needed etc.
*The next difficulty is that if you create large works, are the galleries able to display them properly
These two points would make you think that perhaps smaller is better, here comes the but. But so often a sculpture only really takes is rightful presence known when it's made on a large scale, especially when it's abstract work.
So what to do.
Here's another thought when creating sculpture. I mentioned a sculptures presence. Part of giving a sculpture presence besides scale is placement and by that I mean it's surroundings. In the last set of images I've posted of Brendon's work, you can see some of larger scale works. I've posted one sculpture from various angles that you get an idea of it's surroundings and placement. It has been placed over a pond to create reflection, but not only that, it now also has presence when viewed from the upper levels of the building. From every angle it has a view worth seeing.
I've seen this large spiral and it made me stop, not only to look at the work, but also to look at the work within it's surroundings and to look through the work at whats beyond it in the background. It compels you to take in the surroundings, the people, the architecture and the skies above.
Making smaller works for galleries with one large one makes it easier for the public to imagine and perhaps commissioning the smaller one in a larger version, this way the artists cost outlay is manageable.

While in this post I've spoken about scale in terms of sculpture, but I'd like painters to also consider scale when creating.
Some years ago, the gallery I owned at the time, had an annual competition. One year their was an entry of a work that at first glance was...well it was awful. One of the judges mentioned that she knew the artist and explained the concept and then showed us images of her other work. They were huge panels and just incredible. The gallery competition unfortunately due to restricted space had a size limitation on entries. This artists work only came into its own on a really large scale. We couldn't put the work through, because we had to judge what was presented as entries. The point is, it just proved to me again, some art only works on a large scale and at the same time there are some art works that only work on a small scale.
The overall point is, when you create your art, really think and consider scale and what scale is best suited for that idea.

In the first 4 images are shown small sculptures of Brendon