Saturday, August 30, 2014

Sculpture part 3


This final piece completes the assemblage.  Recalling the totemic effigies of ancient sculpture, I hope to retain a sense of spontaneous fabrication in the porcelain during the glazing/firing process and eventual interlocking of all parts of the work.  

Bruce Dehnert. Studio1

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Sculpture part 2

Continuing to explore the range of possibilities  between figurative and abstract sculpture and investigate intellectual and technical criteria towards work that can stand on its own integrity. Importantly, in my mind there is no strict division between the two.  It is intriguing, that point at which dialogue happens...

Bruce Dehnert. Studio1 

Bruce Dehnert. Studio2

Bruce Dehnert. Studio3
Bruce Dehnert. Studio4 
Bruce Dehnert. Studio5


Saturday, August 16, 2014

Sculpture part 1

Bruce Dehnert. Kiln load
Bruce Dehnert. Kiln load1
Bruce Dehnert. Kiln load2
Bruce Dehnert. Kiln load3






















The gesture and forms in this biomorphic piece are a part of a larger sculpture that is being fired much in the same way that a plane taxies whilst completing its journey.  The forms are thrown, cut apart, altered and reassembled.

Some aspects of the piece are methodically planned, whilst others evolve spontaneously through the handling of the materials.  I delight in this ongoing exploration of figurative ceramic sculpture and installation.  The ambiguity, the transformation...

Saturday, August 09, 2014

Opening Night @ Clay Art Center

A huge thank you to everyone who came to the opening of our show.  I had a blast.  It serves as a subtle reminder that the creative process is part of a continuing narrative.  Human imagination manifest in Art is rock and roll.

Shawn O'Conner and Bruce Dehnert

Two Vigiles: Bruce Dehnert and Shawn O'Conner Exhibit


Two Vigiles: Bruce Dehnert and Shawn O'Conner Exhibit


Two Vigiles: Bruce Dehnert and Shawn O'Conner Exhibit


Two Vigiles: Bruce Dehnert and Shawn O'Conner Exhibit

Bruce Dehnert and Matt Mickelson


Two Vigiles: Bruce Dehnert and Shawn O'Conner Exhibit

L-R Caitlyn Appelgate, Leigh Taylor Mickelson, Shawn O'Conner, Kulvinder Kaur Dhew, Gail Heidel, Bruce Dehnert, Thomas Stollar

Steve Sommers, Bruce Dehnert, Sally Ng


Two Vigiles: Bruce Dehnert and Shawn O'Conner Exhibit

Leigh Taylor Mickelson, Caitlyn Applegate, Bruce Dehnert

Friday, August 01, 2014

New Work @ Clay Art Center NY.

Bruce Dehnert. 'Marker'. Woodfired porcelain, underglaze.
Bruce Dehnert. 'Barometor'. Woodfired porcelain, glaze.
Bruce Dehnert. 'Recline'. Woodfired porcelain, glaze.
Bruce Dehnert. 'Landing'. Woodfired porcelain, glaze.
Bruce Dehnert. 'Ledge 1'. Woodfired porcelain, glaze, maple, walnut.
Bruce Dehnert. 'Ledge 2'. Woodfired porcelain, glaze, maple, walnut.
Bruce Dehnert. 'Marker'. Woodfired porcelain, underglaze.
Bruce Dehnert. 'Ledge 3'. Woodfired porcelain, glaze, maple, walnut.

Studio Daze


For some of these works I was interested in a direct approach to the materials and processes. I felt that because the work would be wood-fired, the surfaces would naturally portray the directness of flame and ash. So I tried, from the beginning, to devise a straightforward way of constructing and shaping the pieces.
When I was around ten years old I became interested in, maybe even a bit obsessed, with puppetry. Although my collection of marionettes grew over the years, Pinocchio, my first puppet, remained my favorite. This was partly due to, I’m sure, the complexities of his character; at once innocent and at the same time a bit of a miscreant. A little liar. Over the years I’ve occasionally utilized Pinocchio in my art as a way to describe contradiction.
From the get-go, I decided to use an aspect of the structure or mechanisms of my puppets in order to construct the work. I used one string [or wire] with a puppeteer’s “control bar” at the end, and starting with a block of clay simply subtracted material.
I borrowed heavily from my sculptural work for many elements of form. Architecture, figure, and spontaneity play important roles. Several of the pieces suggest to me that they are prototypes or maquettes.
Bruce Dehnert. Fire2
Bruce Dehnert. Fire4
Bruce Dehnert.  In progress
Bruce Dehnert.  In progress, studio1
Bruce Dehnert.  In progress, studio2
Bruce Dehnert.  In progress, studio3


Bruce Dehnert.  In progress, studio4


Bruce Dehnert.  In progress, studio7
Bruce Dehnert.  In progress, studio6















In her 1939 essay “The Art of Biography,” Virginia Wolf compared the biographer to that of a miner’s canary, venturing depths and documenting conditions and place, in a tangential manner in which the viewer/reader is then able to follow in the footsteps of the maker.  Art, for me, functions as a journalistic device in which we are able to relish the visual stories that are based on subjective reasoning.

I often invent glaze formulae that will explain something of these firing processes and their effect on materials that melt, crystallize, fuse, drip, or remain stable. I am curious about which elements become obscured and which do not. This surely has something to do with the power of nature to create and destroy, and my approximation, as an artist, of these behaviors in order to elicit an aesthetic experience.