Evan Penny: Ask Your Body

The latest sculptures from South African-born, Toronto-based artist Evan Penny (born 1953) are rooted in his longstanding interest in the human body and how viewers perceive their relationship with themselves and others. While Penny has expanded his sculptural repertoire by openly referencing art from other eras, Ask Your Body emphasizes the visceral manner in which viewers experience the works. The sculptures, several of which are monumentally scaled, can be described as meditations on the many conditions of being human: aspiring to be godlike and failing ("Marsyas"); the body subjected to the sacrifices and indignities of life on earth ("Homage to Holbein"); having one's body regarded as fragmented and dislocated ("Hanging Torso" and "Self Portrait after G?ricault's Fragments Anatomiques"); and creating empathy through the imagined history of the artist's life, as represented by a fictional period from the past ("Young Self") and from the future ("Old Self").