Exhibition Dates: September 11 – November 20, 2010
Opening Reception: First Friday Gallery Walk, October 1, 6-10pm

(Visual Art/Clay)
Location: Artspace, Gallery One
 
David Garratt’s first foray with fired clay heads was in the 9th grade, when he made a bust of Caesar for his Latin class. Today Garratt sculpts clay heads, primarily self-portraits. The realistic nature of Garratt’s work often leads viewers to believe that his works are made from plaster-cast molds, however, each work is hand-sculpted. The artist does not make preliminary sketches or drawings; he simply relies on his own observation from life. Garratt is attentive to his own expressions, for example of joy or amazement, and through his work investigates how to convey such emotions through facial expressions and thus, through his sculpted self-portraits.
 
Primarily self-taught, Garratt work has been exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions including at The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA; the Outwin Boochever Portrait competition, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (semi-finalist); and at the Incheon World Ceramic Biennale, Incheon, Korea (honorable mention). He has been awarded a Pennsylvania in the Arts grant, an HK Mellon/Pittsburgh Foundation grant (both 2001) and has twice been a finalist for the prestigious Adolph Gottlieb Foundation grant (2008, 2010).  The Cultural Magistrate of Salzburg, Austria, awarded Garratt a residency at Kunstlerhaus (2007). He and his wife, Barbara Bernstein, are currently the Resident Artists of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA.