David Garratt: Who Says Words With My Mouth?
March 7 - March 30, 2008Opening Reception First Friday, February 1, 5-9pm
Artist Statement
When I follow the thread of my work through the past years my goals remain constant, through early influences and current work: inquiry and searching of how to express and convey the irreplaceable and incomparable quality of being human; the magic and nobility inherent in the common person.
The creative form of inquiry I rely on is sculpture in clay, the locus of my attention the human head. The question remains how to express (not what or why) the sense of wonder and devotion I have ---with unremitting, relentless, and constant observation---to people and their relationships. What makes humans Human? Are there inherent and innate traits? Is there an original nature and wisdom? And if so, what does it look like?
I am determined, through years of artwork, to attain balancing an inner life with outer needs. My goal remains in striving towards integrating in the work a regard for human dignity: pursuing and engaging in work that examines the personal and intimate in order to explore a visual and visceral attempt to explain, rejoice and be awed by the remarkable and transpersonal.
Working with the human head is a pursuit first developed while I was still in junior high school. I do not make any preliminary drawings or sketches—indeed I have never tried or had the inclination---nor do I rely on any anatomic study. Most recently, I have begun to use myself as a “model” but primarily the heads remain a compilation of glimpses of people that I see in everyday life, walking down the street or in line at the grocery store; these fleeting moments paradoxically contrasted with the solidity of the material of the clay itself.
I make the sculpture as a form of tactile empathetic response to what I imagine their world view and inner life to be; to touch lives that I only imagine and a way to, perhaps, make memorable an everyday moment in a world that disregards paying attention to temporary moments in time. They are not portraits but glimpses of expression, of character, of personalities and avenues toward connection and meaning.
