LOS ANGELES — De Wain Valentine, a sculptor whose use of unusual industrial materials was instrumental in art’s innovative Light & Space movement in the 1960s and 1970s, died Sunday in Los Angeles. He was 85.
Rather than traditional bronze, Valentine cast abstract sculptures from resin, fiberglass-reinforced polyester and other synthetic materials. Most were pedestal-bound and took simple geometric forms such as disks, rings, pyramids and tapered columns.
Architectural scale occasionally came into play, as in a curved wall of clear resin more than seven feet high and wide. Several wedge-shaped columns in gray, deep blue, lavender, fluorescent yellow and other lollipop hues stand as much as 12 feet tall.
