Anatomical model arm and bird sculpture

This incredible sculpture is by Vancouver-based artist Dirk Staschke. It's titled "Premonition" (10" x 28" x 6", ceramic and mixed media). Dirk Staschke (Thanks, Kirsten Anderson!)

UPDATE: In the comments, TALIA adds, "For the interested, this sculpture and other Staschke works are currently on exhibit at the Wexler Gallery in Philadelphia, through 4/2."

• [jimh]

  Points taken Innocent, but I don’t particularly see gore, death, or violence in this piece. At least not in the gratuitous sense. If we look, we can see death and violence everywhere. I find it extremely healthy to intentionally remind myself at every opportunity that these too are part of the mystery that we live here. Everyone and everything will cease to be, is dying, and are all the more precious and beautiful for that fact. To deny reality is to deny that deep beauty as well.

• [TedJohnson]

  I saw this laying in the street near my house yesterday. Never mind. That was a dead squirrel and some crows.

• [Alopecian Muse]

  Very cool! I love it.

• [IamInnocent]

  Thanks Jim.

• [Anonymous]

  If thats a great tit, then the artist knows his birds. They love meat (especially fat) and are a pest worse then rats once they get inside a slaughterhouse.

• [Randki]

  This one made me feel ill.. what the heck ugh.

• [caldrax]

  Odd, I was beginning the design of my website the other day and almost included a combination of x-ray body parts and birds, but then opted against including the birds. I’m glad, because I would’ve felt like I ripped this guy off, despite not having seen it yet.

• [Roast Beef]

  See, here’s where I’m a weirdo, becuase this fits my idea of “wonderful” perfectly. Please do not call the police.

  I have to say, though, the scap and clavicle seem to be upwardly rotated without a corresponding abduction in the arm. Or, wait, just looked at it another way–maybe the arm is pointing off to the side on an angle, the scap is neutral, and the bird is facing up?

  Clearly, I have overthought this. Really, a very pretty subversion of the Disneyish wee-birdies-resting-on-the-princess’-hand trope. (Those talons are serious, as they must be if the bird is hanging onto that hand against gravity.)

• [RAS]

  People perceive this as a sold sculpture. This is a “Ceramic Sculpture” complex and a “Fine Art” piece. It takes artistic to make a sculpture with a void center (hallow). To fire the clay with such phenomenal detail as compared to a solid sculpture. Kudos to Artist Dirk Staschke. Most in the blog do not acquire the symbolism and meaning of the “Premonition”.

  Some find the skinless arm shocking. “Shocking” is one of the Artists tools to make us think and ask questions to develop our minds. IamInnocent only seems to see ugliness. The “incommunicable” is in the eye of the looker…not the artist and those who “see” the meaning. Simply said jimh has an immense incite “Everyone and everything will cease….”

  Check out the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci’s exquisite musculature of the human body drawings:
  http://www.drawingsofleonardo.org/images/shoulderandneck3.jpg
  http://www.drawingsofleonardo.org/images/shoulderandneck1.jpg
  http://www.drawingsofleonardo.org/images/shoulderandneck2.jpg

• [TroofSeeker]

  I can’t call it beautiful, but it is a fantastic sculpture.
  Should’a used a crow. That birdie ain’t got no interest in meat.

• [David Pescovitz]

  Thanks, Talia! Updated my post.

• [Anonymous]

  Wow, It’s cool~~~
  I like this kind of a sculpture. I wanna buy this

• [JPW]

  A bird on the hand is worth how much in the bush? . . .

• [kate]

  I think the only way this could be more awesome is if the bird were animatronic.

• [eyesasears]

  I really like his work. http://www.artdirk.com/
  I found his website that includes even more work that may make some people say “Yuck!”… but I am a fan.

• [pilcrow]

  So the premonition is that birds will be immune to the impending flesh-eating zombie virus?

• [IamInnocent]

  I shouldn’t comment since this piece left me quite indifferent, probably because gore, death and general violence here on BB (and most other places touched by American culture) seems to have become mandatory: I just get bored by the repetition.

  It may be worthwhile to point out that it still an interesting post for someone like me since it exposes the reasons and feelings of those that this sculpture touches.

• [Takuan]

  it’s anatomy, not splatter.

• [cinemajay]

  It’s certainly well done, and bravo to the artist for his skill. But when I first saw this post and image I audibly said “YUCK!”

  That’s how you know it’s true art!

• [IamInnocent]

  I don’t believe it Tak.

• [mdh]

  it’s humanity, not inhumanity.

• [Takuan]

  honestlyreallytruly, Innocent? To me it is an expression of classical art, something Leonardo might have done as a study.

• [IamInnocent]

  Three observations:

  I meant that I didn’t think that it was a splatter, although splattering can be artful.

  My not being touched by this piece may be a failure of no importance; I am grateful for the chance I have to find out how it can reach others though.

  We consider the study drawings of the great ones, especially those of Leonardo, to be art: there is little doubt that they themselves did not share that appreciation.

  All this leads to one of my pet peeves: the meaning that any art has for its creator is incommunicable in its entirety or even very much. One can try to come close to it but I have no evidence that anyone ever fully succeeded. It is a worthy effort nevertheless.
  What is possible for any of us though, at any moment, is to become, in the measure of our talent, artists in our turn when reacting to a piece. Whatever we feel, anything of it that we succeed to communicate contributes to the life of that art, prolongs it, completes it sometimes, draws new avenues sometimes. Think of Stendhal in Florence.

• [Anonymous]

  this scapcher is cool!!!!!!!!!!

• [Talia]

  For the interested, this sculpture and other Staschke works are currently on exhibit at the Wexler Gallery in Philadelphia, through 4/2.

  http://www.wexlergallery.com