The work experiments in metaphor and an attempt to understand whether meaning created by metaphor in the visual arts is contingent on language. Gralnick plans to continue to concentrate on issues of authenticity as they relate to the philosophically ambiguous objects known as works of art. Initially my work draws aesthetic sustenance from, and tries to make meaningful connections to, archaic vessel traditions. While these vessels continue to retain the fundamental anatomy of pottery, they are devised as abstractions. It is Richard Hirsch's intention that his work is perceived as functionally inaccessible and formally sculptural, while remaining within vessel-type architecture.
Some pieces are about exaggerated mass and physical and visual weight.
In others, the forms are skeletal in nature and include a compacted-core volume as center. Space and line are emphasized more than mass. My sculpture arrangements are based on experienced impressions of specific locations. In this harsh, macabre environment I began to embroider designs onto scraps of bed sheets with the thread I unraveled from my socks. Relieved of addiction and encouraged by self-expression, I escaped reality again, turning inward to examine the dropped stitches and tangled threads of my life.