Thomas HOUSEAGO
1972, England
Thomas Houseago:
As I Went Out One Morning is the first large-scale presentation of the work of artist Thomas Houseago (b. 1972) in the United States. Born and raised in Leeds, England, Houseago also lived in the Netherlands and Belgium before moving to Los Angeles in 2003, becoming a United States citizen in 2012. Houseago has taken a particular interest in outdoor sculpture, and as such Storm King is an ideal venue for an exhibition of his work. This exhibition includes indoor and outdoor sculpture in several media, including bronze, aluminum, wood, Tuf-Cal plaster, and charcoal, as well as drawings, displayed in Storm King’s Museum Building and on the grounds of Museum Hill. Houseago began to create outdoor sculpture in 2007, and this exhibition includes the earliest example of his large-scale work in bronze, Untitled Striding Figure, 1, and outdoor and indoor works completed as recently as 2013, and on view for the first time.
Houseago has created a body of primarily sculptural work that simultaneously exudes a sense of physical strength and emotional vulnerability. His works are raw, energetic and surprising, revealing unlikely shifts in depth and representational strategies when seen from different viewing angles. While his works are not strictly realistic, Houseago takes cues from the world around him. As he has said, "In my approach to making sculpture, I try to be honest to the experience of looking and recording. You could argue that sculpture is a dramatization of the space between your eye and the world, between what you see and feel, and memory."
Houseago’s work calls upon a wide range of influences—from Hellenistic statuary and early Modernist sculpture, to popular music and culture. This exhibition’s title, for instance, derives from a Bob Dylan song, and Houseago has said that music, even before visual art, had a profound influence on his artistic development.
As a sculptor who is deeply engaged in the process of making art, the artist’s hand is often detectable in Houseago’s works, as are moments of preparatory drawing, traces of hemp-laden plaster, and wood scraps that initially served only structural purposes. Allusions to a studio-based practice are frequent in this exhibition. In the Museum Building, Houseago has created a site-specific installation with the work Dome/museum/coin room, even making two new felt wall hangings to incorporate into the piece while on-site at Storm King. Along with the grouping of monumental bronze and aluminum sculptures on display outdoors are included two plaster chairs designed by Houseago, which visitors are welcome to sit upon, thus bringing themselves within the playful, multifaceted reality of the artist’s studio.