Ted Bieler
Tower Song, 1997
Aluminum, 762 x 180 x 210 centimetres
Shapes that embody the gesture of a line drawn freehand in space oscillate between the walls of a spiralling cruciform obelisk. Interest in the interplay of formal and random elements in nature is reflected in this sculpture. The spiral of life, found in plant, mineral and animal life, twists its way up Tower Song, suggesting potentially infinite progressions of form ascending upward, descending into the ground below or branching out from it.
The sculptor's fascination with ancient monuments, those of the Maya and the Incas in particular, highlights the art of marking a place by delineating a point of view, a view that here embraces the free flow of a river at the crossing between two metropolises.
About Ted Bieler
Ted Bieler, sculptor and professor of fine art at York University, is the creator of many privately owned and public sculptures, among them, Triad on Front Street in Toronto, Canyons at the TTC Wilson Station, Toronto, Tetra in Portsmouth Harbour, Kingston, and Wave Breaking at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. Born in Kingston in 1938, he studied art at Cranbrook Academy of Art and has been teaching, exhibiting and making public sculpture since graduating. His interest in metal casting processes has led him to experiment with new technologies in his own sculpture and to work with Mr. L.L. Odette in establishing a foundry in the Odette Centre for Sculpture at York University.