Chicken

About the Item: Chicken' is an original opal serpentine sculpture signed by the Zimbbwean artist Samuel Likongwe. Based in Harare, Likongwe was trained in the Shona stone sculpting tradition and his style consistently shows a careful ordering of the nonuniformity of the stone. The chicken is constructed of rectilinear forms with right angles, but together the forms curve into the U-shape of the chicken's body. The use of texture of the bodies is ingenious, using a series of textured parallel lines to suggest the ruffle and regularity of well-preened feathers. At the same time, areas of the stone are left rough-hewn, emphasizing the material of the stone and its origins in the quarry. The overall effect, with this tension between the artist's genius and the stone material itself, reminds of the sculptures of Constantine Brancusi: 'The Kiss' (1907) likewise applies stylized figure to the rectilinear form of the stone block, which marked an important shift in Modern sculpture that still resonates with sculptors today.

Artwork Size: 15" x 10 1/2" x 8
Base Size: 2 1/4" x 8 7/8" x 8 7/8"