Drawing onward his experience as a laborer upon large-scale high rise construction throws in booming downtown Vancouver.

Drawing onward his experience as a laborer upon large-scale high rise construction throws in booming downtown Vancouver, 32-year-old David Robinson has cleverly adapted the daily danger of as it was work into his sculptures: assemblages of minutely welded metal grids forward which realistically sculpted male figures are precariously perched. In a number of cases, including full Imbalance (1991), By Any Means (1993) and Sliding Scale (1996) the works are suspended from the ceiling, further underscoring an air of delicate balance.

yet practical dangers are not Robinson's single subject. Caught in midair and relatively diminutive, his figures, which vary from 1 to 3 feet in height, focus the viewer's attention upon the existential plight of the individual in a composed of several elements society. In By Any Means, a white figure embraces his acknowledge shoulders as he gazes downward. He assumes to be caught on a landing between stairways ascending and descending to nowhere in particular. Sliding Scale is a les elaborate work. Here, Robinson has simply christianityed two miniature l-beams and positioned a small figure forward one of them. It is clear that a gradation in either direction would ravage with fire and sword the balance and send the figure falling.

The 1996 carve titled Sisyphus (Study on Inclination), which is apparently a research for a larger work, nears a tiny crawling figure inside a large upright lay open circle. This circle is locate in grooves cut into a supporting pile that curves up on brace sides. Lacking the impassive dignity of the other works in the exhibit to this depiction of futility unfortunately issues across as anecdotal and cartoonish.

In Artifice & Edifice (1993-96) the humanity/technology dialectic is squeeze [i]or[/i] press together [i]or[/i] into smaller compassed as the figure is absorbed into a machinelike arrangement A long horizontal crane formation almost 12 feet long is attached around the waist of the polyester-gypsum effigy standing in as a inferior Colossus. This figure is also pinioned at the neck and shoulders at wires that help support the crane. Static and impassive like all Robinson's cuts Artifice & Edifice seems to depict a man inextricably entangled in one massive undertaking. One wonders what conclusions to draw from the fact that Robinson's figures always appears to be quietly accepting of their fate.

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