The 1970’s can be regarded as the experimental years of Kent Bloomer’s studio practice, during which he discovered a vocabulary of shapes that were architectural and suggestive of ornament. Bloomer composed his work from two contrasting elements: leaf-like forms act as the positive elements, and flat planes become the negative elements. For Bloomer, the tension between the forms symbolizes natural physical phenomena, such as protons interacting with electrons or magnetic attraction. Prefiguring projects of more recent years, the planes came to resemble walls, and the botanical clusters appeared increasingly figurative. Bloomer reached a turning point in his construction of the Northshore Plaza Project in Pittsburgh. While some leaves emerged from sculptural planes, others burst from the wall itself, attached to metal rods. Bloomer immediately recognized the vitality of these works, “They were the precursor notion to ornament—I had liberated myself from the struggle between opposite forms (in sculpture) by using the wall. At this moment, I abandoned the idea of autonomous art and decided to pursue ornament.”

Northshore Plaza, Architect: Urban Design Associates of Pittsburgh