Stephen Schofield has been working with plastics and plasticity for over forty years. His sculptures give shape to the rise and fall of respiration, digestion, gestation, and other bodily functions, making tactile the membranes that contain and compose our fleshy substance. Combined with other, more rigid materials, plastics allow him to animate the dynamic and tensile rhythms of our corporeality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schofield has often referenced hands in different plastic-polymer-infused mixes, from Members of Generation<\/em> (1989), a series of polychloroprene-rubber-glove sculptures produced during the AIDS crisis to mirror how condoms became a necessary barrier for sexual intercourse, to the more recent La mol\u00e9cule d\u2019eau est en forme de t\u00e9tra\u00e8dre<\/em> (2011). Each carries an internal politics of plasticity in its very being and materiality. Forthe latter work, Schofield created two plastic-infused sculptural hands, their aqua-blue hue and shape conjuring the tetrahedral molecule of a water particle. Collapsing water, body parts, and the polyurethane used to make the object\u2014here, Schofield gestures toward the inevitable, cyborgian enmeshing of plastics with our flesh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the 2024 Plural Contemporary Art Fair in Montreal, Schofield exhibited three plastic works spanning thirty years. The first, You Say Sweeter, I Say Sweater <\/em>(1992), is a sculptural assemblage built from polyester, dupioni, and taffeta silk shirts crystallized with sugar, mounted vacuum cleaners, and a steel base. The vacuum suction hose was connected to a brightly coloured plastic air-generating machine, which acted as a pair of lungs for the inflated fabric. This piece was juxtaposed with La lettre<\/em> and L\u2019enveloppe <\/em>(both 2024), coral-like structures formed by interlocking moulds made of butyl rubber\u2014a synthetic substance used to make bicycle inner tubes. These tendrils, which resemble delicate human tissue, were filled with Hydrocal\u2014a synthetic meeting of polymers, cement, and plaster. Although imperceptible in La lettre <\/em>and L\u2019enveloppe<\/em>, plastic polymers are everywhere in Schofield\u2019s work as an underlying structure or ghostly form, a testament to the near-infinite elasticity, malleability, and ubiquity of the material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Art History at Concordia University, Montr\u00e9al, Didier Morelli holds a PhD in performance studies from Northwestern University, and his writing has been published in Art Journal<\/em>, Canadian Theatre Review<\/em>, C Magazine<\/em>, RACAR<\/em>, Theatre Research in Canada<\/em>, and The Drama Review<\/em>, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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