SUTTON DEMLONG
Photo: Michael Trueblood
Sutton Demlong
Myopia (Or Moral High Ground), 2015
basswood, cherry, ash, cast concrete, steel
100” x 80” x 122”
Sutton Demlong received his MFA from the Rinehart School of Sculpture at Maryland Institute College of Art. He received a BFA in Sculpture and a BS in Art Education from Arizona State University. He is currently working in the exhibits department of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and for Lanning-Smith Studios in Baltimore, MD.
Demlong is a sculptor exploring the development of misshapen egos through forms that combine woodworking and steel fabrication with familiar imagery/objects. The work is a process of overcoming anxiety through inanity. Sometimes humorous, sometimes dark; the resulting objects, situations, and media create a material counterpart to intangible internal mechanisms. In these mechanisms we are all implicated, but not accused. Instead a door is opened. The work is an opportunity to reflect and ask, “am I a participant or observer?”
In Myopia (or Moral High Ground), the telescope is used to draw attention to perceived righteousness. Telescopes allow us to see far, but the resulting image is narrow, limiting. To get too caught up in the impressiveness of such scope occasions us to lose touch with what is right in front of us. A reflection is mistaken for an enemy; and conversations of “right” or “wrong” make everyone wrong. Myopia is an invitation to direct skepticism on yourself before casting it on others.