To New Haven sculptor Dennis Sparling, “art is about the mystery of things.”
Sparling, 67, fabricates sheet copper and wire into dynamic sculpture. Last year, Sparling finished work on his 9-foot-tall, 600-pound representation of Leonardo daVinci. The sculpture integrates daVinci’s drawings and paintings with his feats of engineering, architecture, and anatomy – all ranged around the standing patriarch.
Leonardo, who Sparling affectionately calls “Leo,” will embark on a grand tour later this year. In part, Sparling hopes to find a buyer for the project that took him more than a year and a half to complete. More importantly, though, Leonardo is an educational ticket into the modern consciousness.
Sparling wants his audience to delve into the origins of art and the mystery of being human, using Leonardo as a “calling card.”
Listen to Dennis Sparling describe what he finds important about Leonardo, life and art. The photos show Sparling’s workshop and home, which he built on the ruins of an old limekiln.