Duncan Sherwood-Forbes, wire sculptor

About the Artist

Duncan Sherwood-Forbes (b. 1989) is an American multimedia artist specializing in figurative metalwork. Since 2006 Sherwood-Forbes has used wire to investigate the boundary between sculpture and drawing, using sinuous curving lines to draw through the air and carve negative space into figures and portraits. With work ranging from the minuscule to larger than life, Sherwood-Forbes’ work has brought joy to collectors for over 20 years.

He currently lives and works in Oakland, California.

Artist Statement

My approach to wire is fundamentally rooted in drawing. Rather than constructing volumetric forms, I use wire to divide air, treating space itself as the primary medium.

Like contour drawing, my version of wire sculpture traces boundaries. The core element of sculpture, that differentiates it from other media, is the use of mass. My work is an inversion of that tenet: the wire sculptures do not occupy space so much as propose it; they describe form through absence by using material not to depict the subject directly, but to outline where it would be. The work exists more in the negative space, as defined by the wire, than it does in the material itself. I often leave the metal black in a deliberate nod to ink, emphasizing its role as a drawn line extended into spatial territory.

My early practice was shaped by constraint: as a teenager I began working almost exclusively with a single, continuous strand of wire. I didn’t have welding torches at my childhood home, and I didn’t like the look of wrapped wire attachments; what began as necessity became a preference. The self-imposed challenge of navigating a subject without breaking the line forced innovation, and while I no longer restrict myself to one strand, the logic of continuity remains central to the work.

I return repeatedly to traditional subjects: the figure and the still life. I often sculpt directly from life, and the immediacy of working within a time limit encourages innovation. In the studio, I revisit those same forms slowly, testing alternate pathways through the body, simplifying and adjusting, searching for structural clarity. I build my own visual language — I imagine that there’s a platonic ideal of each form that I’m chasing, and that every time I create, I’m getting closer to it.

Excerpt: The Nature of Contour Wire Sculpture an.ä.log Gallery, 2025