George Trakas

Trakas, George

George Trakas, sculptor (b at Québec C 11 May 1944). After a year at Sir George Williams, Trakas continued his studies in New York, and he has remained in the US. His work belongs in the context of environmental art in that his quasi-architectural structures are inextricably integrated into the gallery interiors or landscape settings that he uses as sites. He strives for multilevelled inclusiveness, and his work is potent with symbolic and metaphoric meaning. Central to his sculpture is the idea that our perspective on the world is not only a function of vision but of the whole body. To experience a sculpture by Trakas in its entirety requires that we walk, climb and otherwise physically negotiate it. Most of his work has been commissioned for specific projects or exhibitions, such as Rock River Union (for the Artpark, Lewiston, NY, 1976), Union Pass (Documenta 6, Germany, 1977) and Extruded Routes (Structures for Behavior, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1978). He has permanent installations of his sculptures in the Fattoria di Celli near Pistoia, Italy (1982) and at the Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek, Denmark (1986). In the late 1990s, Trakas was commissioned to design a waterfront at Greenpoint, NY. Since 1972 Trakas has been working on a large landscape project on Cap Trinité, Baie d'Éternité, Québec.