JOE WALTERS
Joe Walters empathizes and perhaps even identifies with his non-human subjects and in so doing extends the boundaries of humanity and art. Walters brings his subjects indoors and sends his audiences back out to see with new eyes. Walters’ delicately accurate silhouettes of life forms are amplified by their tactile surfaces.
These three dimensional sculptures are rust-colored. Litter Series I, II, and II are wall compositions of birds, berries, animals, leaves, fruit and branches. All are molded from clay and wire and painted with four successive colors that blend to form the characteristic rust color, given texture by sand embedded thickly in the clay.
Nature and history, mystery and mastery collide in these works.
Joe Walters seals and preserves his animals in a state of stasis.
They are presented in a Pompeii-like archeological context-frozen in time and posture. Their encrusted surfaces suggest an encoded metal, which serves as a foil to naturalistic depiction while introducing the element of time.