Dan Gunderson
A Self-Made Man
On View: November 3 - December 15, 2018
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 3, 4-7 PM
Artists Talk: Friday, December 14, 11 AM
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Dan Gunderson is an established sculptor, photographer and educator based in Deland, Florida. For this exhibition, he has chosen to present two separate, yet interrelated bodies of new work. For the first series, Dan is expanding upon an ongoing body of work in which he arranges plastic toys, memorabilia and other unique objects in symmetrical arrangements and then photographs them. He has taken this series one step further for this exhibition by incorporating 3-D printed forms that include his own face in combination with the toys he has collected, to achieve a different scale and an autobiographical element to this body of work.
With respect to his process, Dan explains, “Perfect balance is achieved by placing objects in symmetrical arrangements. A camera mounted directly above the installation then captures rhythmic perspective and diminishing scale imagery leading to a central focal point.”
For his second body of work, Dan has produced a series of digital prints on brushed aluminum that explore facial elements while paying homage to some of his earlier sculptural work. Dan states that his goal is to present just enough facial elements to “achieve compositional balance and the recognition of a character.”
Overall, both bodies of work are united in their strong use of color, compositional elements and incorporation of facial features, each offering an unconventional and imaginative self-portrait of the artist.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Dan Gunderson received his BFA from the University of South Dakota and his MFA from the University of Wisconsin. He has been a professor of art at Stetson for over 35 years and teaches ceramics, drawing and sculpture. He has been widely published and exhibited, having shown work at the Museum of Arts of Sciences, Daytona Beach; Gulf Coast Art Center, Clearwater, FL; Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin; Ormond Beach Memorial Art Museum, Ormond Beach, FL; Galerie Michael Rasche, Freiburg, Germany; and the Menello Museum of American Art, Orlando, FL. His work is held in public and private collections and he has been published in a number of magazines and periodicals, including Ceramics Monthly, The Studio Potter, Pottery in Australia, and Mono Magazine (Japan).