‘BallRoom‘ by Patrick Dougherty, took more than 3 weeks to build with the help of 70 volunteers. Patrick, a US artist, (born in Oklahoma in 1945 and raised in North Carolina), bends, and weaves bracken to create natural escapist artwork. Over the last 25 years, he has built over 230 works which have been shown internationally, from the U.S., U.K. Japan, Belgium, etc. This installation (pictured above), entitled ‘Ballroom’, uses woven willow saplings, sourced from a local firm which has been supplying willow to make cricket bats for over 100 years.
If you want to know more about Patrick; he obtained his B.A. in English (University of North Carolina), in 1967 and an M.A. in Hospital and Health Administration (University of Iowa), in 1969. Later, he returned to the University of North Carolina to study art history and sculpture.
His artistic successes include:
- Maple Body Wrap, (1982) was included in the North Carolina Biennial Artists’ Exhibition, sponsored by the North Carolina Museum of Art.
- In the following year, he had his first one-person show entitled, Waitin’ It Out in Maple at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
- He has received numerous awards, including the 2011 Factor Prize for Southern Art, North Carolina Artist Fellowship Award, Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, Henry Moore Foundation Fellowship, Japan-US Creative Arts Fellowship, and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.
In 2009, Princeton Architectural Press published a book about Patrick’s work, entitled “Stickwork“. For further details about Patrick and/or his work or book have a look at his website: http://www.stickwork.net/ or see more of my ‘Street sculpture exhibits on this page.
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