Peter Dallos Sculpture

The series, End of the Road, depicts untenable situations, symbolizing some critical life-event that requires altering one's course. The series expresses a dystopic world view, a pessimistic understanding of the state of affaires.
The Abstract Machine Series borrows elements from Struggle in which civilization is frequently symbolized by machines. Here complex whimsical machines themselves are the subjects as sculptural entities with full integrity and beauty. In some later pieces narrative content is reintroduced.
Much of my work, The Struggle Series, has been concerned with the two elemental conflicts that affect humankind.  One struggle is between Western Civilization and the forces of nihilism and anarchy; the other is environmental destruction vs. the reaction of the wounded earth.  Clearly man-made objects such as machines, buildings, or finely-crafted abstract structures represent mankind and its works.  Alien plant forms stand in for reactionary forces in some pieces, or for the debased environment in others.  The viewer's identification is with one or the other, whether personal or political.  The two contrasting forms interact, either battling one-another to a draw or one begins to dominate the other.  I find the ambiguity of the work intriguing, inasmuch as it forces the viewer to take sides.
In the Candlestick Series I transform a mundane everyday object, the candlestick, into sculpture. Some in this series are fully sculptural entities in which the candle itself is painted wood with a metal wick. Some are functional. All have elements incorporated from my other sculptural work in which clearly man-made constructs interact with organic forms.
My earliest work, the War Series, was autobiographical, mostly concerning World War II experiences as a child during the German occupation, the bombardment and siege of Budapest, and the Holocaust.  The victims of the conflagration are usually stylized as small brass rods in unmanageable environments.  
This page introduces the various sculptural series that I have produced. Subsequent pages provide additional selected examples and the final Catalog page lists all my works.
My latest sculpure is of flowers. Unexpectedly, the full isolation during the Covid year made me tranquil. Consequently, I moved on from the existential worries of previous work. The beauty of flowers, realistic or imagined and how to make them of welded steel engages me now.