NEW YORK, NY.- Gerald Peters Gallery announces the first solo exhibition in New York City of acclaimed artist Will Clift. Will Clift: Forms in Balance showcases a selection of more than 30 of this self-taught artist’s astonishing sculptures in wood, steel, and carbon-fiber composite that each flouts the law of gravity.

Clift’s lithe, spirited sculptures shatter presumptions about the limits of stability. Explains Clift: “My sculptures consist of intersecting parts that stand or suspend together in equilibrium. No part is extraneous, and the delicacy of this balance reveals the fine line between weight and weightlessness, motion and stillness.”

He begins each sculpture with a form or a movement that he takes note of in the world around him. “This moment of recognition is the most essential part of my process,” he says, adding, “It relies on intuition, when emotion and intellect are in balance. It’s never been something that I can push myself to find, but once it’s there, I very quickly have a sense of how it can be translated into a physical structure with its own point of equilibrium.”

Clift then works out a long series of iterations of his idea on paper. At no point does he make any numerical calculations. “When the drawing looks right to me,” he says, “I know that the finished sculpture will balance on its own.”

Starting with small skeleton-like amounts of steel rod in the most vulnerable areas of the form — generally around its joints, Clift embeds this in a second material like wood or high-density polyurethane, which establishes the general form. On top of this, like a skin, he adds one or more layers of carbon fiber composite, an extremely strong material made of pure carbon, woven into a ‘cloth’ and made rigid by a high-end epoxy. This acts like an exoskeleton for the form beneath, giving each piece tremendous strength and rigidity.