"Cien Anos", Devin Laurence Field
Cien Anos was made for an exhibition organized by the U.S. Embassy and Museum of Contemporary Art in Merida, Mexico, and was then shown in Lake Oswego’s 2006-07 Gallery Without Walls.
Field said the symbolism of his 12-foot-tall piece derives from Merida, in Mexico, a city founded by conquistadors in the 16th century at a time of religious brutality. Its people eventually relaxed, and it became one of the most long lasting stable cities in the region after it began to flourish with the export of sisal, the century plant whose dried fibers made firm rope, supporting 96 percent of the international rope industry at the time. The plant blossoms approximately every 100 years.
His piece, Cien Anos, in turn, is a fusion of these micro-historical gems. 'It has a stalk-like thing that turns into an angel, into a flower like the emergence of the city,' Field said. That's why the piece is called 'anillos,' meaning rings in Spanish.
Devin Laurence Field was born in New Zealand. A fifth generation artist, he studied art in New Zealand, England, France, Japan and the United States, earning three degrees in the arts including an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Oregon.
His work is cut, forged, pressed, welded, ground and polished using thick plate steels, combining the muscularity of large scale structures with the delicacy of intricately cut elements.
In Oregon, his work can been seen along Interstate 5 near Eugene, at the entrance to the new Beaverton City Hall at The Round, Millennium Plaza Park in Lake Oswego, and at the State of Oregon Emergency Coordination Center in Salem.
