Found-object art exhibit on display at MCC
McHenry County College features a found-object art exhibit, "A Change in the Weather," by Doug DeWitt through July 31 in the Epping Gallery, in the bookstore hallway in Building B at the college, 8900 Route 14, Crystal Lake.
DeWitt is a Chicago-area artist whose found-object constructions and environmental art are inspired by natural history and the Midwest landscape. He received his bachelor of fine arts in graphic design from Bowling Green State University in 1985 and his Master of Arts from Illinois State University in 1990.
He exhibits throughout the Chicago region and has shown in New York and South Korea. DeWitt previously designed exhibits at the Field Museum of Natural History and John G. Shedd Aquarium, where his love of nature, science and history merged with his art. He is also an ecologist with a private firm that restores native habitat.
"My artwork is inspired by immersions in landscape and by the colors and textures of weathered materials," DeWitt said. "As a child, I spent hours exploring my grandparents' farm buildings and playing in the creek. I've been an environmentalist since before I was old enough to know what the word meant. The conceptual foundation for my work - whether sculpture, land art or other media - is in how people manipulate land and the natural environment.
"But the concepts behind my artwork are almost always eclipsed by my attraction to weathered and decayed natural and manufactured object," DeWitt said, adding that his abstract sculpture is made with sticks, bones, wood, glass, and rusty metal.
"These materials have inherent content and beauty, and with them I find visual and physical harmony through their decay. I'm also fascinated by the movement of leaves blowing in the breeze, curls of fire in prairie grass, and the continuity of energy through time.
"My ecological land art is site-specific work that develops over many years as degraded landscapes are restored to health."
For more information about MCC art galleries, call Sandra Lang at (815) 455-8785 or email slang@mchenry.edu.