Stickworks | Patrick Dougherty

I suppose it should not surprise me one bit. I remember when I was young, my mother liked to create wreaths for the christmas decorations. And for all that I saw them, I never realized that the ‘dead’ but very pliable sticks which were woven to make those wreaths, were suited for uses other than circles! Artist Patrick Dougherty demonstrated with exceptional finesse and on a large scale none-the-less that it is in fact possible. And beautiful too.

These often extra-human sized shapes and forms at once blend into the landscape while hinting that perhaps they have been placed rather than grown. The forms have something in them- namely the works ‘Doin’ the Locomotion’ and ‘Na Hale ‘o waiawi’- which is very… haunting.