Plant Graphic Forms

Bobby Sharp's still-lifes require depth in space; inside the
Crystal Rock Plastic his arrangements of foliage
have relationship of stems leafs and flowers, an 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. Sharp'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 filagree 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 express-
ion and emotivity; the cuttings are not arranged haphazardly
but placed together in the still-life flower arrangement as an
esthetic composition, more expressionist than naturalist, free-
standing as sculpture are in space.

Robert Horn, U.S. Editor of the Quarterly review "XX Siècle"