Interdisciplinary artist, Daniel Bruttig, explores the grey area between sculpture and painting in his solo exhibition Timekeeper. The show will introduce a new series of artworks combining cuckoo clock components and thick paint. The assemblages are a continuation of an ongoing project in which Bruttig transforms the original context and presentation of a found object into an abstract painting through intensive material investigation.
Through the process of pouring, submerging, stacking and layering such materials as polymer, glue, resin, fabric, and wood, Bruttig deconstructs familiar materials to create unique abstract forms that seem to invoke the blur of time. Bruttig explains, “I grew up around German Black Forest Cuckoo clocks and have always been fascinated by their movements, sound, and craft as functional objects. These clocks have a multitude of meaning historically and culturally that I associate with my Wisconsin upbringing – hunting, birds, rifles, forests and tchotchkes on wood-paneled basement walls.” The artworks also reference vacant architecture and raise questions about what constitutes a home. Bruttig removes all of the gears, chains, and springs of the clocks; at once rendering the objects devoid of their function while maintaining elements of traditional craftsmanship. This exploration reveals the beautiful and grotesque while simultaneously recontextualizing the cuckoo clock as a contemporary object.
