Lumenarc

M.L. Snowden’s sculpture Luminarc, forms an imaginative bronze bridge between the works of the Empire of Light, the Great Angels of the Main Altar and the larger program of the Geological Corium. Where the Main Altar Angels were created for the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles, a sanctuary that ranks among the largest cathedrals in North America, Luminarc further explores this historic commission as the sculptor continues to consider light energy as it has come to be expressed in form as well as immaterial qualities. Vivid mastery of flowing line, exquisite handling of volume, and an indescribable quality of presence is ineffably developed in Luminarc that characterize it as a mature expression of Snowden’s art. In the words of the sculptor, “The communication of light finds its way not just through a trajectory across space but through every particle of our physical world, including ourselves and bronze. It has occurred to me that our own human physical structure is a wonderful expression of the quantum particle wave structure of light.” Ultimately in Snowden’s vision, Luminarc creates a conceptual river of light that illuminates each chapter of the Geological Corium as much as it stands complete in the curving sweep of its own bronze form.
Where Snowden's seminal Geological Corium program evokes terrestrial and cosmic phenomena, Luminarc is that unique arcing bronze that strives to evaporate material existence into the immateriality of pure energy. In this protean and free-form work, the enigmatic and mystical point where spirit and physical substance meet has somehow come to be marked in metal. Snowden achieves a profound sense of fluid atmosphere in rhyming rising lines of Luminarc’s structure that transform bronze into poetry while defying metal’s hard and heavy mass. In the words of the sculptor, Luminarc is a portrait of the “breath of light.”
Here in Luminarc, the sculptor achieves a sense of musical vibration; a sense of freedom and harmony that casts this work at the forefront of Snowden’s vision. Contemplating cutting-edge scientific advancements that have recently proven the water-like characteristics of light where radiance has been seen to pour through apertures like a fluid, Snowden has shaped Luminarc in its aqueous clay and molten bronze along the flowing routes of light that echo atmospheric and liquid substance. The deep interrelationship of physical phenomena is uplifted here like a flowing banner. A skein of bronze suspends figures in flight that relates these elements to Snowden’s work in creating the first Angels in the history of the City of Los Angels. Elements within Luminarc project a sense of tender care and noble destiny in softly molded passages that play and interact with environmental illumination. An indefinable sense of universal and humanitarian relationship as well as inspiration seems evident in the work. Indeed, Luminarc ranks among the most transformative and important work in the sculptor’s quest to explore and transmute the ores of bronze into remarkable substances and statements born of the artistic process.