Deborah Butterfield

born 1949

Biography(b San Diego, CA, 7 May 1949).
American sculptor. Butterfield attended the University of California at Davis where she received a BA in 1972; after spending the summer of the same year at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, she received an MFA from UC Davis in 1973, studying with such artists as William T. Wiley, Robert Arneson, Manuel Neri and Roy De Forest. In 1977 she received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Rocky Mountain College in Billings, MT, and in 1978 she received the same distinction from Montana State University in Bozeman. Butterfield taught sculpture at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, first as a lecturer (1974–5), and then as an assistant professor (1975–7) before joining the staff at Montana State University, Bozeman, as a visiting artist (1977–9), adjunct professor (1979–83), and then adjunct assistant professor and graduate student consultant (1984–6). Butterfield is well known for her sculptures of horses in various materials and compositions, which explore the dynamic relationship among humans, animals and nature.

In the 1970s Butterfield began creating sculptures of horses using plaster over a steel armature, describing these early works as self-portraits. She then moved to more ephemeral and natural materials such as mud, clay, leaves and sticks, which she collected on her farm in Montana and around her studio in Hawaii. These sculptures, which are partly influenced by her admiration of Asian, African and Native American art, merge the horses with their environment (e.g. Horse #7 (Bonfire), 1978; Napa, CA, di Rosa Preserve). Butterfield’s horses are tame and quiet animals, usually mares, standing with their heads gently lowered, or lying on the ground—a posture she relates to the often reclining and seductive female nude prevalent in Western art. This early decision to create docile female horses was also based on her reaction to the popularity of sculptures that depicted giant horses, usually stallions, carrying generals and soldiers off to war. Butterfield’s sculpted horses vary in size from about one metre high—usually presented on a pedestal so it can be viewed at eye-level—to slightly larger than life-size; both placement and size reflect the artist’s love for these animals. In the 1980s she began collecting scrap metal she found in dumps and on her ranch. She shaped the pieces into horses by hammering, bending and welding these discarded and colourful car, machine and metal signage parts (e.g. Riot, 1990; Wilmington, DE A. Mus.). Critics have described her work as a reflection on the replacement of horses by cars and the subsequent impact of this change on our environment, e.g. Horse #2–85 (1985; Tempe, AZ, State U. A. Mus.), which uses a tyre to define the horse’s body. In the late 1980s she began casting horses in bronze from models of wood and applying a patina, which made the sculpture appear as if it were made of wood (e.g. Monekana, 2001; Washington, DC, Smithsonian Amer. A. Mus. and Shannon, 2004; Col. Kim Lyford Bishop). Butterfield’s decision to use bronze not only stems from a desire to make her sculptures more sturdy and long-lasting, but also reflects her interest in materials that are vulnerable and fragile as well as strong and permanent—noting that the medium of bronze is also transformed by rust throughout time.

Part of Butterfield’s fascination with horses arose from her day-to-day interaction with these animals. Active in dressage, the art of training horses to execute precise movements on command, she was interested in the way humans communicate with other species and the structure of language in general. She also compared dressage to the physical and emotional act of creating art. While her sculptures exhibit mass and materiality, the horses are internally animated, with their actions, movements and gestures contained within their bodies. Butterfield’s horses conjure feelings of both freedom and domestication, suggesting that her works are more about human nature and experiences than the animals themselves. [Mary Chou. "Butterfield, Deborah." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 4, 2014, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T2021541.]

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