“It would be difficult to come up with a material that Ajax Axe isn’t willing to use in her sculpture. She’ll often weld a metal skeleton and then build on it using found objects, everything from skulls to gun stocks to traditional sculpture materials. Much of her work is interactive, demanding the viewer’s participation, whether it’s simply cranking the gears of a mechanical device or being enveloped by the art itself. A piece called “Modern Man” resembles a mummy morphing into, or out of, something else. Having spent eight years in Africa as a journalist, her work clearly acknowledges a debt to the figurative art, particularly masks found there. Axe’s solo show, Palace of the Beast, Dark and Light Incantations to the Imagination, will be at Skye Gallery Aspen through Aug. 9.”
