The Sceneggiata Biers Collection: 5"h x 8"w x 4"d
Beginnings and endings and the futility of vanity. This is what my Sceneggiata Biers series is largely about.
I continue to investigate how I can use toy skeletons to communicate ideas. Ever since I was raised by Carmelite Nuns in Italy, who served the evening meal beneath a Baroque painting of St. Jerome contemplating a skull, the skeleton has represented the end of the day, the hopefulness of spirit, a future within it, but, most importantly, the futility of vanity. So, for me, the skeleton always bound me to food as sustenance and a reminder of death, with the skull, not being a dead thing in itself, but having its own vitality just as dry wheat stalks in the farmer's field hold sustenance as feed for farm animals. Perhaps I also learned to appreciate art from that painting.
What does it feel like to meet death? Well, if healthy, it should be easy, but I also attempt to answer the question in how I pose the skeletons in various stages of mounting and consciously going to their final resting place on top of their own biers, offering themselves up, voluntarily, for the elevation to the next realm.
The glittering gems placed on top of the translucent plates resting on top of heavy metal bases represent the exquisite finality of personal death and the continuing regard for the bones which, although exalted in this world, their materiality makes them unable to be elevated, nor enter, into the spirit.
I continue to investigate how I can use toy skeletons to communicate ideas. Ever since I was raised by Carmelite Nuns in Italy, who served the evening meal beneath a Baroque painting of St. Jerome contemplating a skull, the skeleton has represented the end of the day, the hopefulness of spirit, a future within it, but, most importantly, the futility of vanity. So, for me, the skeleton always bound me to food as sustenance and a reminder of death, with the skull, not being a dead thing in itself, but having its own vitality just as dry wheat stalks in the farmer's field hold sustenance as feed for farm animals. Perhaps I also learned to appreciate art from that painting.
What does it feel like to meet death? Well, if healthy, it should be easy, but I also attempt to answer the question in how I pose the skeletons in various stages of mounting and consciously going to their final resting place on top of their own biers, offering themselves up, voluntarily, for the elevation to the next realm.
The glittering gems placed on top of the translucent plates resting on top of heavy metal bases represent the exquisite finality of personal death and the continuing regard for the bones which, although exalted in this world, their materiality makes them unable to be elevated, nor enter, into the spirit.
John Dingler. Studio View of Simpatia made with a pinhole camera before I added the backdrop.
Pseudo Scale Model Fine Art
John led the way to regard scale models as a fine art, first with his Diaphanous Geithner, then with the Magical Flying Carpets, and now with these fabulous Sceneggiata Biers series. They are so delicate, so lively, so engaging, and, they communicate to the nature of existence, to a mystical state whose nature lies between the body's complete physical decay and its total transformation in the next realm. That region is lively, hugely dramatic, full of possibilities. "I capture just some in this series and expect to further develop this theme in upcoming works. Right now I have plans to take a series of photos with my new pinhole camera to reinterpret the finished pieces in a new way. Stay tuned!" he reveals.
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For artist John Dingler, the limited-edition Sceneggiata Bier Collection is a tribute to Neopolitan storytelling. "It emerges out of a passion that I have as a thoroughly committed artist, from my European heritage, and an understanding of the heart of Napoli, but I also pay homage to living bones in this Sceneggiata Series,” he reveals. "This collection has ten exemplar mythologies, and he has tried to distill the most important ones for us."
John Dingler's Sceneggiata Biers