Welded steel, 1998.
“Rapture of the deep” is the diver’s name for nitrogen narcosis, the euphoria that comes over a diver at depth, with good humor, confidence and failing judgment. The danger is that it feels like well-being, and the sculpture is built to look composed. Two tall plates lean together at the center like the sails of a boat. A textured panel stands upright between them on a round disc, and the three together read as a single balanced structure, calm and upright.
The signs of the dive are at the edges. A flat disc lies at the left with an arched handle rising from it, like a hatch with its handle up. A thin wire leaves the disc, loops across the foreground and curls around the foot of the structure like a line or hose running to a diver. The upright form and the opening are joined only by that wire. A diver in rapture depends on a line like it, and the sculpture shows it as a single slender curve.
“Rapture” also means spiritual ecstasy, and the title holds both senses. The raised, sail-like form carries the lift and the ease, and the thin line carries the way back. The sculpture keeps them in one composed object and shows no sign that the wire is under strain.
