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The Philadelphia Inquirer, posted online Friday January 12, 2007

Exuberance in Wood

by Edith Newhall

Fritz Dietel has lightened up. His latest wood sculptures, on view through next week at the Schmidt Dean Gallery, have more fluid, attenuated forms than the works that made up his show three years ago at this gallery, and his use of pigmented epoxy has become downright lavish and painterly. The sculptures also are more openly representational and eccentric than his quasi-abstract, less playful untitled works of three and four years back.

Champignon, a wacky, good-looking mushroom-shaped sculpture of pine and cedar suspended from the ceiling, is the star of the show, followed by Palm, a windblown palm of cedar and pine, and Flicker, the bird of the same name assembled from pieces of apple wood.

Dietel should continue exploiting his sense of humor. He seems to have a knack for transforming the ordinary into the exuberantly exotic.

Fritz Dietel's wood sculpture Flicker is at Schmidt Dean through January 20, 2007.