10/04/2024
Richard Dial, Carpenter’s Gothic ~ on view through October 19th
First Date, 2022
Oil-based paint on metal
68 x 26 x 30 inches / 173 x 66 x 76cm
Richard Dial’s (b.1955, Bessemer, AL) anthropomorphic, iron-wrought structures reflect years of expertise acquired as a machinist in Alabama, as well as generational knowledge passed down through family. In 1984, amidst the closure of the Pullman Standard Company factory where they worked for much of their lives, Richard, his brother Thornton Dial Jr., and their father, Thornton Dial, founded Dial Metal Patterns. Established in response to the collapsing industrial economy, as well as the subsequent boom in availability of skilled labor, the company’s “Shade Tree Comfort” line of patio furniture led Richard to begin making chairs as art objects - using both his mastery of metalworking techniques and an inventive, socially-engaged artistic vision to reanimate familiar objects blunted by globalized production. Melding elements of design, traditional artisanship, industrial manufacturing, and fine art, Dial’s sculptures ‘give new life to the dead metaphors of chair legs and arms, while transforming everyday structures into personifications of tradition.’
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