Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, February 15, 2023: Woods Davy, an American sculptor (#1779)

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

Artist of the Day, February 15, 2023: Woods Davy, an American sculptor (#1779)

Woods Davy works with stones in natural, unaltered states collected from the sea or the earth, and assembles them into fluid and precarious sculptural combinations that appear weightless. These sculptures of heavy stone elements seem to defy gravity and float like clouds, roll like waves, or bend with the flow of the ocean’s chaotic currents.

Art writer Shana Nys Dambrot has observed that Davy’s work is “a collaboration between artist and nature,” one in which the artist “prefers to cooperate with the pre-existing uniqueness and objecthood of his materials.” He might be thought of as among the first “green” Postmodern artists. In fact, he comes from a long tradition of post 60s artists, who either directly or just by their practical sensibility, engage Eastern or Zen notions of oneness with nature, organic systems of change as engines of art composition, and non-disruptive respect for natural material in unaltered states.

Every stone contains the story of its own formation, as well as evidence of interaction with its environment. Woods Davy begins with these inherent histories and orchestrates relationships inspired by exploring and studying the underwater landscape, the waves, and the clouds above. As Holly Meyers remarked in the LA TIMES, there is “something thrilling about a work that appears to defy its own natural properties,” while at the same time one can appreciate the work’s “meditative reverence.”

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