I’m not even sure how Theresa Oborn and her creations got on to my radar – some overlap on the creative fringe of the punk accordion scene, from the looks of things – but her regular social media sharings of impossible evocative creatures from the strange realms of the imaginary, manifest here in concrete reality, were impossible to ignore… and naturally floated toward the top of my “if I release another artpack… if we finally make good on the ‘real world art’ division” list. And while sculpture was an uneasy devolution of 3D modelling as far as computer art goes (let’s face it, putting this kind of stuff into an artpack is well-nigh unpredecented), once she started posing them in animated .GIF loops, we no longer had to sweat the compromise between old mediums, new media and contemporary art. All that matters is that her pieces are awesome, and we made a nice welcoming space for them! The only hard part was narrowing myself down to four pieces and not just ransacking her portfolio wholesale. All that remained was to communicate to a total stranger what an artpack was and what the artscene was, and why she might be interested in participating. Well, OK: the communication was probably somewhat incomplete, but while all we had to offer was “exposure”, on the bright side: we weren’t asking her to do any new work, just to allow us to advertise her existing material!
(Anyhow, 3D sculpture is not an entirely unknown genre for enthusiasts of cathode ray entertainment: Clay Fighter aside, it was rarely better used than in Doug TenNapel’s graphical adventure game The Neverhood: a bold experiment that has gone virtually ignored since its release now 20 years ago (barring perhaps Squinky’s musical detective game Dominique Pamplemousse.) In my estimation any one of these characters would be well qualified to take a starring role in Neverhood 2: Electric Boogaloo. But I digress.)
Had I been curating more carefully, I might have been able to counter Catbones’ gratuitous nipplage (well, non-optional for a work entitled “SteamPink” I suppose) with some carefully crafted twigs & berries, laboriously formed through careful ministrations of a woman’s diligent hands. Not just decorative, in many of her sculptures they play a critical role of acting as a balancing counterweight – somewhat opposite to how things often work out in real life. But I digress further.
The reason I’ve taken it upon myself to expound upon the virtues of her work at this particular juncture, despite not yet having really taken the time to get to know the artist or learn more about her inspirations and techniques, is to revisit a popular theme at this time of year – to helpfully alert you fans and readers that she has Christmas bills to pay and consequently her soulful little Sculpey characters are for sale at a steep discount at her etsy store! Now go forth and empty her shelves!
