Ballhead
Corbett Reynolds (1944-2002) was a designer, printmaker, sculptor, and performance artist. He was also a colleague, collaborator, and friend. In 1992, I was admiring his sculptures of adonis heads with various protruding objects, and he was interested in a computer art piece I was making. We wondered if a joint exhibition of his sculptures and my digital interpretations of his work might make an interesting collaboration. As often happens, life has a way of changing plans and the years went by quickly. Then, in 2002, Corbett suddenly died. I had long forgotten about our planned collaboration until, in 2014, I found an envelope full of photo copies of his sculptures that he gave me as reference material. Here are my interpretations of Corbett Reynolds sculpture. Archival pigment prints of this piece are available at alankinnard.com.
Bellhead
Corbett Reynolds (1944-2002) was a designer, printmaker, sculptor, and performance artist. He was also a colleague, collaborator, and friend. In the 1980s, Corbett started making a series of sculptures of handsome Adonis busts that were broken, rusted, and impaled with various objects. The image of a god of beauty and desire being abused in this way was shocking as I’m sure Corbett intended. I think his choice of objects of adornment for Adonis was primarily aesthetic when creating the sculptures. However, the look he established gave presage to the post-apocalyptic and steampunk styles he used in his 1986 installation “Cold War,” which made a definite political statement. Archival pigment prints of this piece are available at alankinnard.com.
Cherubhead
Corbett Reynolds (1944-2002) was a designer, printmaker, sculptor, and performance artist. He was also a colleague, collaborator, and friend. Catholic tradition played a part in Corbett’s upbringing but when I knew him he wasn’t a practicing, religious man. However, the rituals of the church, especially the visual manifestation of those traditions, were profoundly influential to him personally and artistically. For this particular Adonis, with his crown of spikes, Corbett has enlisted a cherub to perform his divine duties in the earthly realm by acting as a guardian spirit for this unfortunate fellow. I was inspired by the style of Renaissance art that depicts the cherubim as healthy babies frolicking through paintings of blue skies and flowers for this digital painting. Archival pigment prints of this piece are available at alankinnard.com.
Gunhead
Corbett Reynolds (1944-2002) was a designer, printmaker, sculptor, and performance artist. He was also a colleague, collaborator, and friend. Corbett’s presentation of this Adonis bust impaled with a rusted gun is one of his most shocking works. My interpretation is not just based solely on aesthetics. I was thinking about gun violence in America when working on the piece. I was aware that the U.S. has had more mass shootings than any other country, yet mass shootings accounted for less than two-tenths of one percent (0.2%) of all homicides in the U.S. between 2000 and 2016. Sadly, too many Americans have guns on the brain and blood on their hands. Archival pigment prints of this piece are available at alankinnard.com.
Hornhead
Corbett Reynolds (1944-2002) was a designer, printmaker, sculptor, and performance artist. He was also a colleague, collaborator, and friend. I met Corbett in 1977 when I went to work with him at a wallcovering design firm in Columbus, Ohio. I drew on a shared love of pattern design as the major stylistic influence for my interpretation of this horned Adonis bust. Archival pigment prints of this piece are available at alankinnard.com.
10/18/2022