Joe Davidson

Pig Pile

2020

The sunflower and the bouquet is an idea that has been floating around in the artist's head for years. It starts with the notion of the still life, the most basic subject when approaching visual art. It's the attempt to look at that which is full of life, yet by acknowledging its existence, one understands that beauty is temporary and will fade. This series starts with the flower, the symbol of fleeing beauty. By taking this character and turning it into a cast object, the artist has turned it into an icon, further removed from reality by bleeding it of color. The sunflowers then become beautiful shadows their former selves, as dying coral becomes enticing when it bleaches. They are elegant reminders of their past, whilst also becoming new figures that reference archaic notes of classical beauty expressed monochromatic hues. STATEMENT In the end, gravity always wins. It is the blunt, immutable force that has a constant effect, keeping us on the ground and ultimately pulling us into it. Sculpture by its very nature is in conversation with this pull, at times enjoying and acknowledging it, and at times trying to hide and defy it. My work recognizes the force of gravity, sometimes tacitly and sometimes overtly. It is a practice of mixing the delicate with the ordinary. I have been mining the contrasts of sculpture, relishing the materiality while also attempting to address the ephemeral. Because sculpture is so heavily rooted in the ground, one has to accept its materiality. Yet, some of the most effective work I have witnessed is that which attempts transcendence. It is that steady push and pull between mass and lightness, solidity and absence, form and void. Additionally, I am drawn towards familiar objects and associations that are embedded within them. Current work makes reference to visual anchors such as bodily forms, sagging, or bloating. Whether the product is a still life created in Scotch tape or a bouquet composed of plaster flowers, I look to the fantastic as a goal in my work. The work is intensely representational in content but without clearly assigned meaning, thus creating a disquiet. In this way I think in a surrealist vein, looking to traditional figures like Eva Hesse and Piero Manzoni, and contemporary figures like Robert Gober and Matthew Barney. The juxtaposition of the seemingly simple streamline objects with this disquiet adds a powerful force to the work, again symbolic of the contrast between the emotional life which defines us as humans and the compulsions and minutia that compose our daily lives. Joe Davidson

The Heart of the Matter – Metal Wall Sculptures Artist Statement by Tom Hoitsma: In October 2019 my family learned first-hand a brutal lesson about the climate crisis. Dallas used to see one tornado each year. For the last few years that number had tripled and the intensity of the tornados has increased. On October 20, 2019 one of these super tornados ripped through our Dallas neighborhood. With winds up to 140 miles per hour and three quarters of a mile wide, this tornado literally came right down our street. By some act of God, the tornado jumped over the first 5 houses on the west end of our street (including my house), which I was in at the time with my kids, but destroyed most of the homes just west of us. We have all seen images of this kind of destruction on television but to walk the neighborhood the next morning, and see the destruction with my own eyes was completely surreal and deeply disturbing. As usual, my eye kept settling on the sculptural beauty in some of the wreckage, especial the twisted metal. I collected some of these broken and bent objects and brought them to my studio to contemplate. On our walk the morning after the tornado, my 12 year old daughter and I bumped into a couple standing in front of their home. It was destroyed. The roof was gone, a few interior walls were standing but most of the exterior walls were just piles of brick. The couple pointed to an interior white door that was still standing (the exterior walls to that room were gone) and said, “do you see that white door? We were all huddle behind that door when the tornado ripped the roof off the house. The air was thick with debris flying around and we all just clutched each other until it finally passed. In front of that door used to be our bedroom (there were no walls standing). We’re so grateful that the four of us made it out without a scratch.” And that made me think. People are so resilient. Events in our lives can break our hearts but somehow we cannot be defeated. Like these sculptures, our hearts get tangled, bruised and battered but still remain full of hope and joy. We all emerge, changed from experiences but eventually, hopeful for the future. It became clear that this twisted metal was the perfect metaphor. To take this material which had been so tortured by this tornado and create something vibrant and beautiful. This work, born of the tragedy created by the climate crisis and super storms, is an examination of the impact of the “new normal...

Shelley Heffler was born and raised in the Bronx. She attended the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York where she studied interior design, followed by a Bachelor’s Degree in Art. She graduated from Cal State Northridge with a Master’s degree in fine art followed by a teaching credential. She traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia photographing...

Wood, window screen, plaster, joint compound, polymer and acrylic paint