David Hicks: Seed

Diane Rosenstein Gallery is pleased to present Seed, an exhibition of ceramics and drawings by David Hicks. This is Hicks’ first solo exhibition with the gallery. This body of work is closely connected to the landscape surrounding Hicks’ studio and home in Central San Joaquin Valley, a largely agricultural area in California. The artist writes,

While not tethered to a focused realism of nature’s shapes and natural development, my approach is more a loose conversation with natural form; one that addresses my interpretations of growth, irregularity and the movements of nature.

David Hicks’ multifaceted terracotta works ‘grow’ up and around the space in which they are installed. In some, dozens of unique elements are assembled into a steel armature that acts as a wall-mounted frame, or as a freestanding branch-and-root system on which the ceramic objects appear as a kind of fruit. Dionysian ‘Offerings’ take the artist’s maximalist approach to an extreme, depicting heaping plates of vegetal forms—some rising four feet high off the floor —doused in thick glazes, often captured in mid-drip. Plant-like forms also appear as small talismanic objects the artist calls ‘Clippings’. In places, the forms appear more bodily, like heads or organs, offering a reminder that we, too, are a part of the landscape.

David Hicks: Seed will be on view from January 9 – February 13, 2021. The gallery is open by appointment only, Tuesday through Saturday, 10am – 6pm.