Eternal fish 2015

Teddy Cobeña's sculpture, Eternal Fish, stands eighty-eight by one hundred and twenty centimeters, and looks to be made of bronze, though I am not sure. I imagine Cobeña starting with the base and moving toward the head, carving away to reveal the fish within—a process that’s both additive and subtractive. The breaks between each block and the gold joining the block suggest a puzzle or backbone, one that is almost complete. There's a tension between the weight of the material and the fish's lightness, its movement through water. That green-brown color gives it a sense of history, like it's been pulled from the bottom of the sea. It reminds me of work by Brancusi, where he used to carve fish in marble. I like the gesture that Cobeña is working with some similar things. It’s all one big conversation, isn’t it? It's like everyone's riffing on each other, and in the end, it’s about something as primal as what it means to be alive.