Duayne Hatchett 1965 Totem Steel Sculpture

Duayne Hatchett was a visual artist whose work included prints, paintings, sculpture, and found objects. He was born on May 12, 1925 in Shawnee, Oklahoma. He enlisted in the Air Force where he trained to become a fighter pilot. After leaving the military he studied design at the University of Oklahoma. His highly technical military training combined a mathematical intelligence with a love for physics and a daring embrace of new experience, all of which would soon be the tools for his evolution through art. He accepted an invitation from Alexander Hogue to teach sculpture at Tulsa University in 1954. He moved his family to Tulsa where he would teach for the next ten years. While in Tulsa, he became well known as a teacher and a sculptor, often lecturing at various sculpture conferences around the country. He also began to obtain commissions for sculpture as his interaction with architecture continued to evolve. He began to meet and interact with some of the most influential New York artists, including David Smith, Louise Nevelson, Noguchi, and Chicago artist, Richard Hunt. In 1968 he took a teaching position at the University of Buffalo where he would head the sculpture department for the next 24 years and he would move his art in multiple directions. He began a series of paintings to exploit the simple line drawings previously used to define the plate metal sculpture. These paintings explored the optical relativity of two and three-dimensional space depicted on a flat plane. He was also continuing to develop his geometric minimalist sculptures, landing several sculpture commissions around the country. In 1974, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, NY presented, Duayne Hatchett: Recent Paintings and Sculpture. In the ensuing years his work would be shown in one person and group shows around the country. In the studio, the confluence of construction and the 'Found Object' re-entered his work in a completely unexpected way. Construction itself became the creative engine transforming his new art. New tools and working processes were adopted or invented to create new art. The trowel would replace the brush for building new paintings. Tools for rolling and burnishing metal would be invented and riveting would be adopted to build new sculptures. He was influenced by the characteristics of materials and objects such as corrugated sheet metals, the optical effects of plastics, metal grates, tin cans, seen in his man made environment, as well as crosscut tree logs and drift wood from his natural environment. He began to build sculptures, in the privacy of his studio, largely unseen by the public. In the late 90’s, the found object re-emerged in the form of new sculpture created from railroad spikes welded together to form organic conglomerations reminiscent of nature. He also began to build assemblages of found objects and materials that maintained a continuous flat surface, which were simultaneously sculptures as well as being blocks for prints.