The Northern Light

Media Credit: Sharon McMillan - The Northern Light [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Sharon McMillan - The Northern Light [Click to enlarge]

In this series, The Northern Light investigates the meaning and history of public artworks around campus.

"Transaction," 1999

Bright Bimpong

She sits, not in a chair, but on something like a cabinet. Her short, plump legs dangle in front of the hole that gapes from one of the container's vertical planes.

She wears strappy high-heeled sandals. A skirt hugs her thick thighs. The hem stretches across her legs just above the knees. She hunches over a laptop keyboard, hands poised to type, but there is no monitor. Her breasts sink into her lap, a loosened necktie flopping over them. Her head rests to one side, propped up by a conch shell that receives her ear into its secret chambers. Her round lids nearly close over eyes that seem to gaze down at her hands. Her face is expressionless. Maybe she is sad, or tired; perhaps she is merely engrossed.

She sits, every day, on the second floor of the UAA Rasmuson Hall, and never looks up at the people who walk by her.

"I see beauty in plump people," said Bright Bimpong, the creator of the bronze sculpture of a woman in the Rasmuson Hall. The sculpture is one half of a two-piece work, "Transaction," created by Bimpong in 1999 for the Rasmuson Hall, then the Business Education Building.

Both the bronze sculpture on the second floor of the Rasmuson Hall and its partner sculpture outside the Rasmuson Hall on the east side capture a moment in the metamorphosis of how people effect transactions in their lives.

Both sculptures comprising "Transaction" feature old and new technologies for exchanging information, including conch shells, an abacus, a keyboard and a database disk.

"Traditionally, people in Africa and the Carribbean islands blew conch shells to make announcements," Bimpong said. "Now, many times when there's a transaction, the information is on a database, so I use the disk to symbolize that. I tried to blend cultures and blend time."The transaction of roles between men and women, as culture and business are changing, is also captured in the sculptures, most notably in the bronze outside the Rasmuson Hall.

"In contrast to the man being in charge of business, I try to portray the lady in charge," Bimpong said, "having her sit down with the guy standing up to shake hands with her."

The woman wears a skirt but also a business jacket. Her right foot is bare, while her left foot wears a man's business shoe. She nonchalantly looks through the man rather than at him as she extends one hand to shake his, the other holding a conch shell to her left ear. The man looks uncertain as he extends one hand to meet hers. He wears full business attire, but one of his feet is also bare, while the other rides snugly in a high-heeled strappy sandal. Bimpong said he doesn't work in any particular movement in art but is influenced by his origins and experience. "I'm an African," Bimpong said. "I'm from Ghana. So coming from Ghana to the U.S., I've learned to evolve with culture, with time."

Bimpong's last major commission was a bronze, aluminum and marble sculpture for the State Forensic Science Laboratory in Meriden, Connecticut. He said he now mostly works on small sculptures for private collectors.

"I'm excited to have a piece in Alaska," he said. "In the Lower 48, Alaska is pretty much another country. I tell people, 'Look, I've been to Alaska, I have a piece there.' I think of all my commissions, that's the one I'm most proud of."

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