Dan Woodard

Archetypes...Myths...Rituals.  I have long been intrigued and fascinated by these concepts.  In my sculptures, both figurative and abstract, I employ these aspects of a collective unconscious to evoke an emotional state within the viewer.

In my figurative work, my goal is to capture the myriad changing state of the human condition through subtle changes in facial countenance and body language.  The end result shows how the inner condition is expressed by the outward form while also conveying a sense of this expression transcending both time and history.  In my abstract sculptures, I have recreated the numinous quality of subconsciously shared images, stories, and ceremonial rites.  The sculptures, themselves, are composed of abstract forms that are covered with a rich, textural surface.  The end result is a complex organic piece that evokes a sense of ancient artifacts, of ritualistic objects from some unknown culture, or of imagined landscapes.

However, be it figurative or abstract, my ultimate goal is to have the viewer feel a sense of familiarity with the work...a sense of having experienced this before.  I believe this feeling of déjà vu arises from both the collective unconscious and a mystical center we all share.