L.A. Louver presents New Sculptures by Deborah Butterfield |
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| Written by rubin |
| Friday, 17 April 2009 17:18 |
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A dramatic shift in the work occurred with Butterfield’s move to a Montana ranch in 1979. This new site had a profound impact on Butterfield’s choice of medium, with her introduction of scrap metal; form, with her pursuit of dematerializing the work, and scale through her ability to create larger-than-life-size horses. Butterfield has continued to broaden her use of materials to include cast bronze, found steel and other metals, which she patinas in a variety of colors and finishes. This new exhibition demonstrates this diversity of scale, surface and form, and for the first time includes sculpture made of copper tubing. Regardless of the material, each unique sculpture evokes the interior life and spirit of the animal. Butterfield captures the horses when they are at rest: as Lawrence Weschler states “they exude a sort of sovereign self-sufficiency.” Butterfield has said “I aim to capture this great volume, this great weight, at this point of balance, when they are heavy and quiet… a moment of being and completeness.” Yet Butterfield has also claimed that her work is not about horses at all. Rather, the horse is a tabula rasa, or blank image, to which the viewer gives meaning. The horse may also be considered a metaphor of the artist herself. Butterfield takes one of the oldest subjects of art and interprets in a way that is personal, distinctive and highly refined, and yet is also accessible and direct.  Born and raised in San Diego, Deborah Butterfield studied at the University of California, Davis and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. From the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s, Butterfield taught sculpture at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Montana State University, Bozeman. Since 1976, the artist has exhibited extensively. Solo shows include the Israel Museum, 1981; The Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, the Seattle Art Museum and the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in 1982; Oakland Museum, California, 1983; Denver Art Museum, 1989; San Diego Museum of Art, 1996; Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, Montana, 2003 - 2004 (traveled to the Contemporary Art Museum, Honolulu and Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach). Commissions include the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden at UCLA, California. Works are also represented in numerous public collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; The Brooklyn Museum, New York; Cincinnati Museum, Ohio; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; San Diego Museum of Art, California; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.The exhibition is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated 280 page full-color catalogue that includes an interview between Deborah Butterfield and Lawrence Weschler, and a foreword by L.A. Louver director Kimberly Davis. Featuring sculptures created by the artist over the past decade, the publication catalogues in depth both the current show as well as previous exhibitions and works that have been presented at L.A. Louver. L.A. Louver is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. 45 North Venice Boulevard - Venice, CA 90291 / Telephone 310-822-4955; fax 310-821-7529 / Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; www.lalouver.com Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
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