Artwork copyright Deborah Butterfield. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Artwork copyright Deborah Butterfield. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Wickiup, 1995

Deborah Butterfield
(American, born 1949)

Location: Central Washington University, Ellensburg

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Wickiup is an example of artist Deborah Butterfield's body of bronze sculptures of a solitary horse figure. The surfaces look like weathered wood branches. These sculptures investigate the relationship of power and fragility. Butterfield notes, "My work is not so overtly about movement... the gesture is really more within the body, which is more about the content, the state of mind or of being at a given instant."

The driftwood forms for this sculpture were made from wood gathered at the Yakima River, near Central Washington University.

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Central Washington University.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Deborah Butterfield's sculptures have focused intimately on the horse form for over thirty years.

Born and raised in San Diego, California, Butterfield earned her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees from University of California, Davis. During 1970s and 1980s, she taught sculpture at the University of Wisconsin and at Montana State University. Her sculptures are in many art collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Art Institute of Chicago, Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC, and more. She lives and works in Montana and Hawaii.