Gallery W.D.O

gallery W.D.O. in Charlotte, NC, will present an exhibition entitled, Animal Magnetism, featuring clay sculptures by Rick Crown. The exhibition begins Feb. 1 and continues through Mar. 2, 2002. This show will be the last at the gallery’s Atherton Mill location in Charlotte’s South End district. Later this year, the gallery will move to a new location in the Hearst Plaza on Tryon Street in Uptown Charlotte.

Crown is an Associate Professor of Art at Queens College in Charlotte, where he has been on the faculty since 1971.

“This work owes a huge debt to those founding members of Modernism who valued African and Pre-Columbian art. They established a context for primitivism and validated naiveté. From these roots has grown my own exploration of animal forms,” says Crown, adding “With the energy of a child, I approach the plastic potential of clay to create these animals. Both construction and gesture are primarily spontaneous. Color and texture are used to emphasize the emotional expression of these creatures. When the work is at its best, I lurk beneath their body language and their attitudes.”