The Life of a Woodcutter | Matthew Ballantyne
July 10 - July 31, 2021
In The Life of a Woodcutter, Ballantyne has collected recent works which take local woodpeckers as a starting point. Expanding out from his practice as a birdwatcher, the inspiration from his wanderings and chance, as well as telegraphed encounters with woodpeckers have found their forms in photographs, sculptures, textiles, and video.
Interested in their capacity for destruction and their reputations as nuisances, Ballantyne notes the tension between the petty scapegoating of woodpeckers and the endless justifications of human-based ecological ruin. Much of the work uses overlooked material and photographic traces of these birds in our shared environment to meditate on what it means to find creative impetus, unlikely connections, and moments of transcendence in overlooked places. These places could be splintered piles of dry rot, beak-pocked siding, or emptied-out tree trunks.
Spanning histories of amateur naturalism, conceptual art, wildlife photography, and poetry, Ballantyne blends these dispirit but complementary interests to think through the myriad joys, mysteries and heartbreaks involved in sustained attention to a group of beings who, despite our shared material entanglements, can seem to get along just fine without us.
Interested in their capacity for destruction and their reputations as nuisances, Ballantyne notes the tension between the petty scapegoating of woodpeckers and the endless justifications of human-based ecological ruin. Much of the work uses overlooked material and photographic traces of these birds in our shared environment to meditate on what it means to find creative impetus, unlikely connections, and moments of transcendence in overlooked places. These places could be splintered piles of dry rot, beak-pocked siding, or emptied-out tree trunks.
Spanning histories of amateur naturalism, conceptual art, wildlife photography, and poetry, Ballantyne blends these dispirit but complementary interests to think through the myriad joys, mysteries and heartbreaks involved in sustained attention to a group of beings who, despite our shared material entanglements, can seem to get along just fine without us.
Image credit: Rachel Topham Photography
The Life of a Woodcutter | Matthew Ballantyne
by Mark Mushet for Galleries West
Selection of works
