Peter Haines is showing the most recent "Artifacts" from his large work "Archaeology" - hundreds of hand-sized abstract bronzes, accumulated for twenty-five years. Dozens of softened hexahedron shapes called "Blocks" comprise a subset of the "Archaeology". These are laid out as individuals in "Collection". Vertical constructions have also been made of the "Blocks". One of these "Towers" attains a height of 7 feet. Expressed most purely in the "Artifact" series, the object is the main idea in Haines' sculpture-- refined forms, jade-like patinas, made for the touch as for the sight. While the sculpture is rooted in form-first abstraction, images (animals "Devil Dog", architecture "Three-Legged House", figures "Envoy") inevitably creep in-a projection of the warm subconscious onto the cool geometry.

Artifacts have been a continuing thread in my work since I found my first one (an axe) in a dream around 1975. Simple, elegant, refined - they seem to me to be simultaneously archaic and modern. Metaphorically, I think of these objects, now numbering in the hundreds, as an 'archaelogy' of the subconscious. They are made for the hand as well as for the eye.

On another level, the artifacts are studies of archetypal forms which can be elaborated into more complex images. An advantage of sculpture is that ideas such as wholeness, beauty, timelessness can be expressed without words. One of the elements of this wordless expression is negative space. A doughnut is defined by its hole. If one accepts space as part of the doughnut, where does the doughnut end? Thus the doorways, windows, silhouettes of my sculptures can suggest an area larger than the sculpture itself.