Artist Profile

 

My sculptural work in wood explores the connection between my creative future and past experience.  I express my love of nature, gardening, and landscaping through the use of found objects, natural and repurposed wood, particularly the branches, roots and trunks of trees.  My work includes intaglio prints, abstract sculpture and semi-functional furniture, primarily tables and chairs. My emphasis on wild natural forms emerging from finished wood boards and beams is a metaphor for the creative artist emerging from the constrained finished life of a business manager.  

 

The tree connects us with the earth, the air and water.  The miracles of photosynthesis and transpiration, the movement of life from the roots of a tree through the wood of the trunk and branches, complete the regeneration of life from the decaying wood that builds the soil.  This transformation creates life, not possible without the tree, and I become part of the process through the creation of art. 

 

I am influenced by Asian art, growing Bonsai trees for twenty years, the work of George Nakashima, and the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, especially his affinity for Japanese art forms and his goal of grounding the inner space of the house into the outer space of the natural environment.  I develop my work by responding to the wood, knowing the piece will change in the process.  The final product reflects my responses to form and content, finding expression in space, but holding a place in time.  

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Artist Bio

 

I attended Phillips Exeter Academy, Dartmouth College, and graduated from the University of Vermont in 1974, with a B.A. in History, where I also studied design and silversmithing.  In 2010,  I returned to school and received a B.A. in Studio Art from Queens University of Charlotte in 2012.  I attended Penland School of Crafts in the summer of 2011, where I learned to work with natural forms in wood, using mortise and tenon joinery.  

 

John Gardner

Mint Hill, NC