Coming Soon
Upcoming at the Armory
FUNCTION NOT FUNCTION
The work of Denise Woodward-Detrich and David Detrich
Opening Reception: September 8, 4 – 6 pm
September 8 – October 17, 2009
Exploring the shared duality of career, FUNCTION NOT FUNCTION brings to the Armory Gallery the work of Denise Woodward-Detrich and David Detrich. Both artists inhabit the Art Department of Clemson University, Denise as the Director of the Rudolph E. Lee Gallery, David as an Associate Professor and head of the Sculpture Department. A shared commitment to the making of fine objects of complex beauty, these artists produce astounding objects with diametrically opposed purpose.
Denise Woodward-Detrich is the Director of the Rudolph E. Lee Gallery in the Department of Art at Clemson University. Before joining Clemson University Ms. Woodward-Detrich served as a Master Instructor at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities and prior to that as exhibitions coordinator at Clemson University from 1996-2000. She received her MFA in Ceramics at the New York College of Ceramics at Alfred University and has maintained an active exhibitions record having been invited to participate in seven national exhibitions in 2001. Ms. Detrich has given workshops in North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee and has been included in publications such as Wheel Thrown Pottery by Don Davis, Best of Pottery, published by Rockport Publishers and Studio Potter magazine.
Originally from East St. Louis, Illinois, David Detrich received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri and his Master of Fine Arts degree from Alfred University in New York. His teachers included Dale Eldred, Jim Leedy, Tony Hepburn and Wayne Higby. He has exhibited his sculptural works nationally and internationally including venues at the Tallina Kunstiulikool in Tallin, Estonia and at the American Cultural Center in Taipei, Taiwan. His work is also represented in public and private collections nationally. Outside of the field of art he has consulted with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, Government of Jamaica and was involved in architectural collaborations with architect, Robert Miller including Nexus Press in Atlanta, Georgia and the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, South Carolina. Before his academic appointment at Clemson University he served on the faculties at Wichita State University in Kansas and at Alfred University. David is presently an Associate Professor and head of the Sculpture area in the Department of Art where he has been teaching since 1992.
Artists’ Statements
Utility is paramount in my investigation as an artist. Inspired by mundane activities of the day to day my work focuses on functional objects. I strive to create objects whose purpose is elevated from a purely functional state to one that balances the functional, the visual and the tactile. The balancing of these relationships has operated as source inspiration for the creation of my work.
Denise Woodward-Detrich
Covered Jar by Denise Detrich
From Hegel’s Theory of the Dialectic to evening TV sitcoms I have always been a sucker for irony and paradox. I identify most with a definition I found in one of my old dictionaries of the term “artist” as being a trickster that employs slight of hand. My work involves manipulating recognizable and conditioned elements of formal geometry, language/text, art about art and the socio-political in an open dialogue of opposition. I feel my work is most successful when it poses a question rather than presenting an editorial on a subject. I also contend that “style and consistency” are antithetical to the creative process. I am very curious about the potential of art making that can exist by recognizing a seemingly incongruous palette of concepts and contexts. The end accumulation may appear to be disparate but hopefully this approach has the capacity to represent a broader sense of who I am and how I reflect upon our current condition”.
David Detrich
Culture, mixed media by David Detrich