Second Kiss (in progress) 2002

I completed this piece initially in 2002. I am currently redoing the base, with other bronze elements. It is about six feet tall.

The piece was inspired by an experience I had in South Africa in 1999.

I had the opportunity to go swimming with the great whites in Mossel Bai. (Talk about a religious experience...)

I had recently completed first Kiss, and had caught a little art-school flack for doing work that was similar to Wyland and Robert Lynn Nelson.

This piece was a kind of response to that, and the experience in Africa.

To fully understand the piece, one needs to know a little about great white behavior and physiology.

The great white in the piece is a very young "browny" and is in fact in a very docile posture, with arched back and relaxed mouth.

The infant in the work is placing his hand firmly on the nose of the shark, where the Ampullae of Lorenzini are located.

This has a strange effect on many shark species, whereas the shark often goes limp, flails a bit, and retreats from a source of stimulation.

Metaphorically, the baby is the one in control of the situation, as much as the young shark.

back to thumbnails