Deborah Butterfield, Happy Medium, unique cast bronze with patina, 93 by 110 by 40 inches, 2011. Courtesy Danese Gallery, New York.
Deborah Butterfield’s new sculptures continue her focused exploration into form and figure. Since the late 1970s, Butterfield has been making horse sculptures, first with mud, clay and sticks, then using steel; for the last 10 years, she has been forming equine figures using cast bronze. Five sculptures recently on view were dated 2011, which is surprising given the intensity of fabrication and labor implied in their creation. The artist carefully arranges pieces of found wood into horse shapes then creates molds of the wooden sculptures for durability.
Finally, Butterfield adds a patina that mirrors the original colors of the wood. Danese’s main gallery contained three larger than life sculptures comprised of downed tree branches and stray twigs that showed Butterfield’s sensitivity to and careful study of her subject. Happy Medium immediately greeted the viewer upon entering the gallery. A tangle of graceful curving lines twists and turns, forming a torso, head and neck that rests on the horse’s four grounding branches, the legs. Butterfield creates elegant yet physically powerful lines in the sculptures, which in her view remain true to drawing although she has stretched the gestures into three dimensions. Continue reading…
