Contemporary sculpture: Thomas Houseago

Contemporary art and a new decade of 21st century sculpture

Thomas Houseago

Los Angeles-based sculptor Thomas Houseago was born in Leeds, UK in 1972, but it is only in recent years that his work has started to receive international attention.

Houseago creates monumental figurative sculptures that are moulded in plaster directly onto a support.

His works typically combine three-dimensional with two-dimensional elements: body parts that are sculpted into crude but realistic form, along with flat panels that allude to further areas of the figure, often through the use of energetic drawing.

In addition, Houseago's practice of revealing the structures and processes used to create his works provides further incongruity between their looming, aggressive appearance and the hollow, fragile shells of plaster with which they are generally constructed.

This constant interplay of form is echoed by the interrelation of Houseago's many artistic references, which encompass the focus on human stance typical of classical sculpture, as well as the abstracted and totemic qualities of 'primitive' sculpture and the adoption of these concerns by 20th century western modernists.