Gallery ARTSHIP - http://www.galleryartship.com

	ARTSHIP presents the newest neon work of a most singular and prolific painter and sculptor: William Stock Rathbun...


		PAGE 4: WORK IN PROGRESS SUMMER 2008
		ABOVE: Left-- Prototype "32 V-8", a 6-foot, free-standing neon-lit sculpture made of classic car engine parts, wood, board, newspaper, poster parts, wire, plastic, glass and artifacts; available also cast in shining metal This piece celebrates the Hudsons, DeSotos and other beloved rolling icons of our transportational past -- and also refers to present and possible events in the auto industry-- its subtitle could be "Japan Eats the Auto Industry"... Right: Detail from the prototype "32 V8". THIS PIECE AVAILABLE IN METAL WITH NEON. ASK US. BELOW: LEFT: "EXIT SUNRISE AVENUE": 6-foot, free-standing neon-lit sculpture made of wood, glass, paint, newspaper, plastic, cloth, string, neon tubing and assorted artifacts found and constructed. The piece references the life of an American artist; Rathbun projects one of the Sloane/ ‘Ashcan school’ artists as he finishes a day of creativity to stumble into one of his haunts, his head still full of ideas and memories, and pauses to relax at the ever-present (in Rathbun’s work) Black Piano… perhaps a later chapter in the life begun in "Entrance to Cathedral Street"...also, a history of night life from the 1940’s onward, and constructed like a building—into which the viewer needs to peer while on his knees, in order to view the scenes being acted out on the bottom floor. RIGHT: the "newspaper people" -- made to look like person-sized versions of Manhattan skyscrapers-- in a DETAIL shot from the 20" x 26" wall-hanging, neon-lit sculpture made of wood, glass, paper and artifacts which takes us to city haunts: "AFTER HOURS" ..............................................................

Many of these pieces were shown at the PARADISE CITY ARTS FESTIVAL in May 2008 in Northampton, Mass..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~Photography of Rathbun art by Hillman Barney and Helen Compton~~~~~~~~~~~~

BELOW:

LEFT-- Truth and Fantasy: wall-hanging neon-lit sculpture-collage, 12 x 18”. Made of: Plastic toys, other artifacts found and constructed, wood, cloth, paper, string, glass, paint, maps, newspaper, neon tubing. Here we revisit “Skeletor”, an action figure toy once popular with children, which tended to glamorize death as a fantasy hero; here Rathbun associates it with a poem written during WW 1 and employs Skeletor it in its true colors, as the icon of death and destruction brought on by war. RIGHT-- Detail from Fossil: 24" x 28", another meditation on the theme of war's destruction, employing plastic toys and other incongrupous artifacts .

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