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Untitled 1 

Charles Arnoldi’s 1981 work Untitled 1 is a sculptural construction made of bright acrylic-painted tree branches and sticks. It stands nearly seven-and-a-half feet high by just under seven feet wide and just over six-and-a-half feet deep. The branches are all fairly slender, the thickest being a couple of inches around. Some are several feet long and straight. Others are less than a foot long, and curved, forked, or knobby. Although tangled into what might seem like a haphazard placement, the way the sticks support or bend into each other, criss cross, and rest in each other’s nooks must have been extremely thoughtful and deliberate. Overall, the structure is rectangular, if a little wavy, with some arched branches that go up and across like tent poles. Bits of stick reach out a few inches past the borders without detracting from the general feeling that the sculpture is like an imperfect cube or even a small building.

The acrylic paints in this piece are vivid and rich, spanning the rainbow, including fire engine red, peachy orange, lemon yellow, lime green, mint green, turquoise, teal, royal blue, lilac, plum, and white. While these colors may feel at odds with the wholly natural sticks, they are anything but. The colors well represent what one might find perusing gardens in spring or summer, whether found on the flowers, butterflies, or birds in trees, like the ones these branches could have been collected from. Each stick is painted multiple colors, in jagged or smooth stripes and bands, from top to bottom. Arnoldi carefully trimmed the sticks to have either perfectly flat ends or angled tips, much like the angle that is used for cut flowers in bouquets and arrangements.

Untitled 1 is dynamic and exciting on its own. The way the jumble of sticks balances gives the piece a sensation of motion. Even more dynamic is the way this sculpture can constantly create new shapes from its own shadows depending on the light. It is displayed in front of a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows. As the sun moves, shadows create a second ethereal sculptural piece from the real one beneath and around the work. This one will constantly reinvent itself throughout the day, giving the viewer an endless variety of lines to inspect as they cross, intersect, and converge.