Cross MacKenzie Gallery is pleased to
present "Farewell" a new sculpture exhibition by the
prolific and powerful ceramic artist, David Hicks. This is
his second one-person show at our gallery. The title of the
show reflects the artist's recent move from his native California to North
Carolina and the sculpture by that name was the last he made in his west coast
studio. This exhibition will also be the last in our Canal Square gallery before
we move to a new location in Dupont Circle.
This show builds on themes of
agriculture and gravity that Hicks explored previously, but the compositions
have grown denser, more complex and literally and figuratively heavier.
Hicks continues to create an array of gourd-like shapes of various
textures and dimensions with an incredible scope of variation.
Each element is unique and unfamiliar, inhabiting a place in one's
imagination between associations: at once a cantaloupe, then a beached buoy, an
insect's pod, a bird's nest or curing salamis and hanging Dutch
cheeses. The delight is in the discovery of the
imaginative elements and the surprising harmony of the whole.
Somehow, all these individual parts grouped together add up to a powerful
physical presence and visual experience.
The structure is simple and obvious which
helps the sense of order - a single or multiple hooks supporting the steel
cables threaded through the ceramic bulbs that dangle and pile up. There
is no "less is more" here - its all about
abundance and excess, bearing fruit and multiplying, heavy and ripe and ready to
plummet. But the sculpture stays up and holds our attention, tempted
though we are with the tactile rawness, to pick the fruit before it falls.
There are several pedestal pieces in
the show that defy gravity in another way by acting more like metal than clay in
their design. With no tensile strength, Hicks has managed to
create architectural skeletal structures of openness and space in clay, grids
more suited to steel, but the effect is stunning in glazed ceramic.
The show opens April 15th
6-8 and continues through the end of May.
Our summer group show will open
in June in our new gallery space.
Digital Images available.
contact:
Rebecca Cross 202 333.7970
cross mackenzie
gallery
1054 31st st wash dc 20007
www.crossmackenzie.com
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