THOMAS HOUSEAGO
Work in progress at studio, 2012
 

Thomas Houseago is vanguard in his approach to sculpture’s original subject, the human body. Utilizing mediums associated with classical and modernist sculpture—such as carved wood, clay, plaster, and bronze—as well as less traditional materials like rebar and hemp, Houseago builds monumental figures rife with the traces of their making. Body parts rendered from flat portions of wood adjoin with others sculpted in the round to create interplay between two and three dimensional elements. His bulky-shouldered figures replace the grace of their serpentine contrapposto stance with awkward contortions of piecemeal appendages. Crouched and stilted on thick limbs, Houseago’s reductive interpretations convey a striking sense of weight and anatomical structure. By tapping into the nuanced legibility of the human form, Houseago’s figures oscillate between states of power and of vulnerability.

Thomas Houseago (b. 1972 Leeds, England) lives and works in Los Angeles. He studied at the Central Saint Martins College of Art, London and De Ateliers, Amsterdam. His work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including those held at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2010); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2010); and Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2011). He has had solo exhibitions at Modern Art Oxford (2010–11); Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2011); and Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, Norwich (2012). Houseago’s Lying Figure is installed in New York’s High Line Park through March, 2013. In January 2013, the Dijon art center Le Consortium will install a selection of Houseago’s sculptures in the city of Aix-en-Provence, France.