Kirk Hopper Fine Art will present 20 robust works that reveal Mac Whitney’s early mental and physical capacities to stretch, reach and explore the fabric of a free-standing form through the richly corrosive texture of aging metals.

Industrial and organic, inside and outside, mechanical and sexual, passive and aggressive, functionalism and poetic license are just a few oppositions which the sculptures manage to blend in surprising ways. As a group, they recapitulate memory, audacious formal rigor and hard manual labor, while also giving viewers the artist’s sense of surface, texture, space and surprise at the perception of solid and void. Component parts take on a fierce internal energy, things come out of things, pushing, nudging, linking their outer parts.

This gathering of Whitney’s sculptures bridges the gap between two dimensional drawing and three dimensional structure. The metaphorical objects claim space while fleetingly suggesting landscape elements, a dance of abstract shapes animated by gritty and saturated color, or as casually drawn as distant plains. The raw or burnished metal reflects its surroundings as a way to integrate color and form. Visitors can move around Whitney’s sculptures and watch how the characteristics change with the light of day. The slightest shift and they yield a dazzling array of complex, tactile facets now multiplied in the play of reflected light, a constant state of tension between abstract concept and natural form.

Following the opening reception, the exhibit will be on view through April 19.