1971 / Bronze on incised wood / 124 x 73.66 cm / Artist: Virginia Ty-Navarro / Private collection

As a sculptor, Ty-Navarro has developed figurative styles in bronze and other media using a variety of techniques. In Gyre, or a circular movement, she dwells on her favorite imagery of birds. The figures are made of thin metal sheets shaped by the strategic application of heat to suggest the body, wings, and tail and then welded together to form a whole figure. The shiny bronze medium reflects the light at different angles, suggesting movement. Furthermore, rows of fine parallel rods are welded to the solid forms of the wings and tail to suggest spreading feathers as in flight, at the same time that they contribute a dynamic textural quality and a sense of bristling life.

In this work, two birds interact with each other against a wooden panel. With feathers spread to their fullest span and lightly touching, their positioning with respect to each other suggests a circular and continuous flying gyration, possibly as in a courting dance. The sense of movement is further enhanced and developed by the long, curvilinear lines incised in the wooden background. In fact, the wooden panel, an integral part of the work, is treated as sculpture by means of the artist’s incision technique. It also situates the birds in a landscape, with the stylized rows of plants at the lower border suggesting the earth above which is airy space where the birds fly.