Monday, November 2, 2015

November News

Avian Inspirations: Donna Dodson and Andy Moerlein

Muskegon Museum of Art, Michigan USA

Display by Andy Moerlein
Avian Inspirations is an exhibition of small-scale sculptural work by Donna Dodson and Andy Moerlein. Also known as the collaborative team The Myth Makers, Dodson and Moerlein created the monumental Avian Avatars that are sited about downtown Muskegon Michigan. This show is an intimate view into how their individual vocabulary contributes to the larger outdoor pieces.





Donna Dodson’s finely sculpted animal headed goddesses reference ancient archetypes. Her wood sculptures of a vulture, rooster, pea hen, and pheasant each represent unique personality types. These bird-human hybrid figures assume postures of transcendence.  Their forms reference Egyptian canopic vessels and Native American totems, lending them a mythic, timeless quality.

Culture Vulture

Ms. Pea Hen

Prodigal Daughter















Delicate Conversations
Moerlein’s birds, perched on branches and ledges, are a familiar sight, a pause for a creature otherwise seemingly in constant movement. A still bird carries an inherent sense of impending action, but in Moerlein’s work the moment is frozen, and the birds locked in place. They stand as sentries, or settled into rest on twisting, organic structures that are characters themselves. Boulders rest precariously atop narrow branches, or fungal forms hang like decks above spindly legs. And through these, the birds sit, caught in their own narratives, unmoved by the complexity around them, looking outward or to each other alone. 


Unsion by Andy Moerlein

In seeing the individual works of Dodson and Moerlein, the audience can find the genesis of the Avian Avatars, and better understand the inspirations of their form and materials. Dodson’s iconic, stoic figures are writ large, but now are revealed through the twisting and layered complexity of Moerlein’s saplings. Found objects intrude and become part of the form, lending their own character to these giant sentries. A sense of the ancient looms, of figures built for burning in sacred and communal rites. In the blending of two artist’s inspirations, a greater unison is revealed. 






Update: Read all about The Myth Makers in this Maynard Grapevine article by Denishe.



Recently installed at the Art Complex Museum in Duxbury Massachusetts: 


Forest Grace by The Myth Makers: Donna Dodson & Andy Moerlein



If you missed the Boston Sculptors show at Chesterwood this summer... You can still see our piece "Forest Grace" through 2017 on the grounds of the Art Complex Museum in Duxbury.

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