Saturday, February 18, 2017

Quantum

'Quantum' 
NHIA Sharon Arts Center
2.3.17 - 3.12.17


Bruce Dehnert. 'Quantum' Opening reception
From a young age I was a writer. In being such a thing, I came to understand that the characters with the greatest breadth of complexity were the most interesting.  With a yawn, the simple characters were deleted as quickly as they’d appeared. Never satisfied until I’d bequeathed characters with imperfect symmetries of good and evil, by my teenage years I had begun to more fully comprehend that this was a principle in the real life personalities of the many characters living in my hometown.  Their ‘stories’ seemed richer for it, as did my own. 
Bruce Dehnert detail
My family was loaded to the hilt with devout Episcopalians, whose passionate beliefs in Christian mythologies, on the order of Virgin Births, for example, was equal only to the sheer volume of my early doubts. With these doubts came the recognition of and appreciation for the structure of their storylines. However, the adherence to a seemingly unredeemable faith in the stories was alarming. 
My grandfather was a carpenter. My father is an architect. For a time, I worked in construction.  I am inspired by the function, aesthetics, and conceptual reach of Structures. In this exhibition, the architectural-like structures serve to both support the figures and represent narrative as construct. Like all mythologies or stories, written or told from the ground up or heavens downward, their many storylines, like an architect’s blueprints, intersect or form corners or infer the pathways of rational thought.
All of the central characters of Shakespearean mythology are vehicles for life’s great themes. Being voracious messengers for morality, ethics, faith, and desire, some employ supernatural proclivities setting them apart from us earthbound types. None of them can be regarded simply as “Good” or “Evil.”  
Bruce Dehnert. "The Fool." Earthenware. 23" x 18" x 18"

Monday, February 06, 2017

"Embellish"

Bruce Dehnert. "Monarch." Earthenware. 23" x 19" x 15"

"Devil"


Bruce Dehnert. "Devil." Earthenware. 16" x 15" x 12"

"Measure"

Bruce Dehnert. "Measure." Earthenware. 22" x 22" x 18"

"The Fool"

Bruce Dehnert. "The Fool." Earthenware. 23" x 18" x 18"