Terry Maker : Point Blank

Colorado artist Terry Maker’s singular vocabulary of mixed-media sculptures of objects or cast-foam amalgamations of select, repeating elements, inserts her work into the relevant discussions of the day; issues that often focus on the unquenchable legacies of human desire. Maker’s selected forms become or represent specific symbols that, playfully and purposefully, speak to the physical or spiritual concerns of the human condition. In “Point Blank,” Maker examines the “conundrum and force of attraction”, and furthers states, “to temporal concerns in a transitory world and the ever-compelling drive for power.” In this exhibition, the power of missiles or guns to make one’s mark also carries with it the possible destruction of fellow humans on the very same quest for meaning. Maker’s sculpture entitled Trigger, is an intentionally concentrated and raucous, sphere-like form made from a variety of cast-resin gun barrels pointing starburst-like in all directions at once. It simultaneously embodies a cartoon-like menace as it also invokes palpable vulnerability – no one, it feels, is quite safe from the barrel the guns. Provoking serious thought, wonder and humor together, the artist asks each viewer to consciously stand in the line of fire and consider their personal stance on the issue of potential annihilation. Referencing the drive for bigger and better weaponry, Maker offers that, “throughout this exhibition, images of various forms of one-upmanship lightheartedly appear, yet they also suggest the ever-moving target of our fears and that the identity of our ‘enemy’ is constantly in flux.” The oversized pink bullets on Pink Bullet Belt on a Nail may suggest the potential for a shift in who wields power where matters of gender are concerned. The sculpture’s proximity to one of the artist’s signature sliced-record sculptures rendered with elements of pink from a Reader’s Digest set of patriotic melodies, may also advance the idea that the allegorical “Lady Liberty” lights the way to a more inclusive definition of freedom.

In contextually revitalizing objects and re-assigning new meaning through her clever use of form and material coupled with her sly examination of human impulse, Maker gets to the heart of issues in unique fashion. Curator Blake Milteer notes that, “the subjects of Maker’s art may appear as contradictions and it is perhaps in this way that the art most engagingly suggests human experience.”

Terry Maker has a B.A. from McMurry University, Abilene, Texas and an M.F.A. from the University of Colorado and an M.A. in Education from Texas Tech University. Her many solo museum exhibitions have included Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and Museum and Arvada Center for the Arts, Arvada Colorado along with exhibitions at Denver Botanic Gardens, University of Wyoming, Laramie and other venues throughout the US. Maker’s vivid 12-part piece entitled Magic Marks will be exhibited at the Longmont Museum, Longmont, CO from February 2 to September 23, 2018.