Michael Warrick: Clay, Metal, Stone, Wood | UA Little Rock School of Art and Design Art Exhibitions

Michael Warrick:
Clay, Metal, Stone, Wood

Brad Cushman Gallery | June 1 – July 22, 2021

Michael Warrick’s studio practice has involved clay hand building, bronze and aluminum casting, manipulations of stainless steel, subtractive stone carving, and shaping and carving wood. The exhibit, Michael Warrick: Clay, Metal, Stone, Wood in the Brad Cushman Gallery at the Windgate Center for Art + Design (WCAD Level II) celebrates significant sculptural works created by the artist over the last decade. The primary focus of this body of work is on portraiture and the figure. Pieces have been borrowed from regional collectors and from the artist.

The sculptural forms denote the variety of series Warrick has developed over the last eleven years. Sample representations in the exhibition are the Coral series in bronze, the Seed series in marble and wood, the Meditation series in clay and bronze, the Seven Deadly Sins series in bronze, the Facial Fragment series in clay, the Growing/Nest series in bronze, the Doily series in aluminum and the most recent Pellis series in bronze. The artist acknowledges, “The constant in all these series is my interest in experimenting with new approaches to technology, techniques, materials, color pallet, and ideas.”

A new site-specific installation in the Maners/Pappas Gallery (WCAD Level I) titled Michael Warrick: Spirits will feature seven monumental meditation portraits cast in Hydrocal and reinforced with fiberglass. These portraits were inspired by the sculptural installation titled Astronomer’s Dream, which Warrick created for a solo exhibit at the Arkansas Arts Center in 1996. In that installation there were a series of Spirit Portraits that represented mentors and spiritual guides. The current installation includes seven Spirit Portraits suspended at eye level in a low-lit gallery space. These portraits also represent mentors and spiritual guides for the artist.

The Arkansas Arts Council acknowledged Michael Warrick as an Arkansas Living Treasure in 2020. Today, he is known regionally, nationally, and internationally for his public art commissions, which include sculptures for parks in Changchun, China, and Hanam, South Korea. In the Little Rock area, he has created sculpture at the National Park Services Central High Museum, the Central Arkansas Library System, the Statehouse Convention Center, The Vogel Swartz Sculpture Garden, the University of Arkansas Ottenheimer Library, The CARTI Cancer Center, The Ronald McDonald House, The Bernice Garden, the Maumelle Library, and the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute. In 2019/2020 he installed sculpture at The University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, the city of Southlake, Texas, and the Grove Community in Whittier, California.

He is the recipient of numerous grants, fellowships, and awards such as a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship through the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forrest, Illinois, a Visual Arts Grant/Fellowship from the Southeastern College Art Conference in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, an Arkansas Arts Council Visual Arts Fellowship and Artist Grants from Art Matters, Inc., the Pollack-Krasner Foundation both located in New York City. In 2009 he received the Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement by the Southeastern College Art Conference in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

In 1989, Michael Warrick created a large-scale sculptural installation for the University of South Dakota. He states, “This work helped me clarify the vision of my artwork. That year I had read Letter from a Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and wanted to develop a work that strongly reflected on the type of quiet strength it took to commit to non-violent protest and helping others overcome their difficult circumstances. The work that I developed was titled Dangerous Dreamers.”

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