Critical Conversations: bridging pathways forward to greater understanding and creative solutions.

Concavity Exercise

Rowena Reed Kostellow Digital Archive

a detail photograph of a circular hole in a white form
Zhijian Xiong, BID 2018
three images of a curved white form made of a thin continuous plane, seen from different angles
Alex Morpurgo, BID, 2013
a white cube with circular incisions on all sides
Student Work, Author Unknown, 1980s
a white cube with circular incisions on all sides
Yihong (Hugo) Li, BID 2019
a black and white photograph of a complex plaster form
Author Unknown, from Interiors, June 1953
a photograph of a white cube with circular incisions on each side
Joyce Macoro, BID 2021

The concavity exercise asks students to think about erosion in natural forms and how that concavity contrasts with the convexity of the objects. Dominant, subdominant, and subordinate relationships are developed through sketching. Students are asked to be aware of the axes and not to trap the negative space, instead allowing it to flow through the object. Final designs are executed in plaster or salt blocks. The presence of the form is increased through extraction.