Birds of Color Sculpture Installation Lands on the Lawn at Good News Cafe

Sculptor Douglas Holtquist will exhibit his installation, entitled “Birds of Color,” during the summer of 2016 at Carole Peck’s Good News Café and Gallery, located at 694 Main Street South in Woodbury, CT. The exhibit includes “Whirly Bird” and the pair “Dabbling Drake I” and “Dabbling Drake II.”  

Good News Café will welcome the sculptor for an opening reception from 3 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, June 12. The public is cordially invited to meet the artist, view his installation, and learn more about his work while enjoying complimentary hors d’oeuvres and wine. 

Douglas Holtquist is a self-taught sculptor and a Master of the Far Eastern art of Ikebana, Japanese flower composition. During his years in Tokyo, he started personalized instruction in this highly regarded art form because he was surprised to learn that a samurai warrior’s rank was determined in part by his ability to make a beautiful flower arrangement before battle.

In creating uniquely strong floral compositions and unusual Ikebana vessels, Holtquist gained an international reputation for his public, large-scale bamboo and wood installations. Holtquist also worked with clay, stainless steel and stone in the mid-90s, making other art forms, but always incorporated oriental art principles into his abstract and representational sculptures.

Holtquist taught himself anatomy from direct observation of models in Pietrasanta, Italy. His figurative sculptures were curated into exhibits and exhibited in Italy, The Netherlands and Germany. His one-man sculpture show in Venice in 2007 sold out. Two European galleries show his work.

“Artists have portrayed the human body in sculptural form for more than forty-thousand years. In media ranging from marble to plaster, clay to glass, I find myself exploring the dynamism and movement of this marvelous structure that contains our feelings, ideas, beliefs and memories. I invoke classicism in these figures, but am interested in creating a modern language of gesture and expression, rather than copying the past. I explore the nude form of both genders because I am interested in celebrating the joys of life: things that both activate and motivate the body, expressions of exuberance and passion.” 

Since returning to the U.S., Holtquist is working primarily with glass and studied with American and Czech glass casting masters. Because glass allows light to enter and activate the sculpture, Holtquist found a new and exciting range of expressive possibilities.

Holtquist was born in Minnesota and has lived in Woodbury since 2013.

The Good News Café is open from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, and closed Tuesday. The hours on Sunday are noon to 10 p.m. The phone number is 203-266-4663. The website is http://www.good-news-cafe.com.