This Saturday, Portland will see the opening of a new body of sculptural work from Joe Shea at Springbox Gallery. With a spacious room at his disposal, Joe will be showing large sculptural works and an installation. Working with found objects, wood, clay and, as he puts it, “lost cultural icons,” Joe crafts etheral figures. New life is brought into these objects that some may regard as unusable or trash to some. Castoffs. To Joe they are precious things, already imbued with spirit from past existence. His figures seem anonymous, each one a moment in time, captured. There is a delicate quality inherent — the feeling that a slight whisp of wind, a whisper, could return these individuals to the base elements they are meticulously created from. Golems of the mind…

In the artist’s words: “this collection of work is based on the idea that ‘the soul’ is always transformed………from human to human………. human to animal……….& animal to animal…….

the soul also effects things during its existence…………..like nature………and other beings…………….even common objects……………..this transformation and the reprocussions of its effects is what i’m attempting to capture in the narratives of the work…………….

An animating essence that passes through all living

things…….creating a moral & emotional nature that lives on long after a physical passing……………”