Plant Graphic Form

Bobby Sharp still-lifes require depth in space; inside the Crystal Rock Plastic. His arrangements of foliage have relationship of stems leafs and flowers, and intimate work of contrasting textures and tones of color in a closed perspective. The shelf sculpture studies these elements of the given as schematic abstractions so that their qualities are made clear. Sharpe's relations of forms are not mere flower arrangements, pressed flowers, or miniature bouquets. The still-lifes stand as sculptures of the multifarious specimens that he composes in an actual space. While the filigree of nature is respected, Sharp calculates his comparisons of flowers as motifs of geometry; the symmetry of plant forms, rather than bouquet paintings, or illusions of an art medium, are present in Sharp's work. Early photography provided the plant itself, and was the first to emphasize geometrical pattern as a subject worth conserving.

	H.W. Fox Talbot 1840	K. Blossfeldt 1925	B. Sharp 2005

Sharp uses the plant patterns natural geometry as though the garden varieties, or mere wildflowers, were elements of expression and emotivity; the cuttings are not arranged haphazardly but placed together in the still life flower arrangements as an esthetic composition, more expressionist than naturalists, freestanding as sculpture are in space.

Robert Horn, US Editor of the quarterly review "XX Siècle"