Back-to-Back: Hands to Earth Opening Reception

“Back-to-Back: Hands to Earth” William Bennett, 2024, 72” x 43” x 30”

Two recycled Indiana grey limestone blocks formed during Mississippian era, ca. 350 million years ago, and from the UVA Hunter Smith Band Building, cast concrete, sand, Tenax stains and sealers, two Service Berry trees, black beauty, gold leaf, low voltage light, and viewer participation.

Two stones becoming one,
Set on a
Lens shaped vesica piscis.*
Carved excavations for seat, legs, hands, and feet.
Two participants,
Known to each other or not,
Are invited
To sit Back-to-Back
To be joined as one,
To be one with the stones,
To be one within the Earth.

William Bennett (whb@virginia.edu) is an Emeritus Associate Professor of Sculpture who taught sculpture at UVA from 1979- 2021. He thanks the UVA Art Department for the use of Ruffin Hall studio spaces where this work was created.

*The vesica piscis is a type of lens, a mathematical shape formed by the intersection of two disks with the same radius, intersecting in such a way that the center of each disk lies on the perimeter of the other. 

Back-to-Back: Hands to Earth (detail of two participants with hands engaged within “Waterfall” face of sculpture)