Dane Winkler
June 5 – 27, 2015 forth both material and conceptual juxtapositions through the interactive application of hard craftsmanship and poetics. Foremost an uncanny familiarity in the objects invites one in their curiosity and confusion. The viewers interaction often completes the experience, internal or not. In my current group of work I’m exploring the mundane affairs in life alongside a more complex nostalgia by means of industrial materials, sound, kinetics, performance, and video within handbuilt environments . The relation to the body, be it the viewers or my own is all but invisible. Dane Winkler is a sculptor and currently a second year MFA candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park scheduled to graduate in May 2016. He received his BFA from the State University of New York College at Plattsburgh in 2012, and has exhibited nationally at galleries and public venues such as Rosalux gallery in Minneapolis, MN, Prescott College Art Gallery, Prescott AZ, and Earlville Opera House in Earlville, NY. He has also attended artist residency programs such as Salem Art Works in Salem, NY, Franconia Sculpture Park inShafer, MN, and Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, NY. He grew up on a small farm in upstate New York, and uses details from his childhood in a lot of his work.
In the site specific installation ‘Conjure’, I am working with the feeling associated with the memory of sunlight through a tarp covered hay wagon. Specific memories from my past growing up on the farm stick out as aweinspiring experiences. The concept of doing hay later on was realized as a theory of work vs. play. When enough hay was harvested, some bales would have to stay on the wagon and if it was scheduled to rain, a blue tarp would be tied down over the structure. The rain would collect in the center and the tarp would sag down reaching towards the bales creating an incredible light show through the rippling water. Through this installation I’m seeking to evoke this feeling of intense nostalgia.
