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<< Return to list of essays and reviews
"...new sculpture reveals both the influence of nature and a desire to let process become part of the aesthetic." The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 6, 1998 By Edward J. Sozanski, Inquirer Art Critic Schmidt/Dean. In recent years, Fritz Dietel has moved progressively toward more expressive treatments in his assembled wood sculptures, while making them large and more reliant on natural-wood character. The result is work that stylistically has moved a considerable distance without losing touch with its beginnings. Dietel's exhibition of new sculpture at Schmidt/Dean's Spruce Street gallery reveals both the influence of nature and a desire to let process become part of his aesthetic. Dietel is a superb craftsman, but in some of these sculptures he strives for a ragged, organic look. This means exposing chunks of epoxy adhesive (there are lots of glue points in his sculptures) and dispensing with perfect fits and squared ends. His constructions haven't become slapdash; rather, they express the rough but structurally beautiful overbuilding one finds in birds' nests and beaver lodges. Two sculptures in the front room express this ideal forcefully but in sharp contrast to each other. One is Twist, a sinuous, tapering cone of natural cypress slats that coils around itself in a graceful figure eight, The other is Burr, a 10-foot-tall, gray spiral that bristles with jagged protrusions. Siren and Torch are both conical shapes that begin smoothly at the narrow end and conclude with a spiky flourish. Siren, assembled from redwood sticks fastened with gobs of epoxy that glisten like anthracite coal, resembles a hollow tree. Torch is a similar form inverted into a dark flambeau. Oropendola, with its bulbous base and ragged top, stands in a corner like a blasted, hollow tree. A pear-shaped opening in the base can be seen only by looking inside the hollow. Creel, a pouchlike basket of cypress strips, offers another allusion to nature -- in this case, a bird's nest. The show includes eight mixed-media drawing. Whether conceptual musings or formal studies, they enrich the mix considerably. Schmidt/Dean Gallery
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