Todd Hoyer
biography |
portfolio | artists listing
b. 1952, Beaver Dam, Wisconsin
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Arizona State University Museum of Art, Tempe, AZArkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR
Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, Racine, WI
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN
Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Charlotte, NC
Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL
Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, Providence, RI
Museum of Arts & Design, New York, NY
Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
Wood Turning Center, Philadelphia, PA
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI
University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2010 Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Exposition, Chicago, IL
2009 Los Angeles Art Show, represented by del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2008 Collectors of Wood Art Forum, Scottsdale, AZ
Woodturning in Basic Black, SOFA, Chicago, IL; AAW Gallery of Wood Art, St. Paul, MN
2007-08 Shy Boy, She Devil and Isis: The Art of Conceptual Craft, Selections from the Wornick
Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
2007-08 Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Exposition, Chicago, IL
2006 Selected Works, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Our Turn Now :Artists Speak Out in Wood, Ohio Craft Museum, Columbus, OH
2004-06 Nature Transformed: Wood Art from the Bohlen Collection, Touring
University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL
Museum of Arts & Design, New York, NY
2002-06 Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Exposition, New York, NY; Chicago, IL
2005 Collectors of Wood Art Forum, Philadelphia, PA
Artists' Reflections: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Wood Turning Center,
Philadelphia, PA
Out of the Woods, DeVos Art Museum, Northern Michigan University, Marquette, MI
Glass, Metal, Wood, Phoenix Airport Museum, Phoenix, AZ
Masters of Wood Art III, Finer Things Gallery, Nashville, TN
2004 Sculpture, Objects, Functional Art Exposition, New York, NY
Nature Transformed, Wood Art from the Bohlen collection, University of Michigan
Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI
Under the Bark: 25 Years of Wood Turning, Brigham Young University Museum
of Art, Brigham, UT
2003 Into the Woods, Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA
A Tribute to Rude Osolnik: An Exhibition of Contemporary Turned Wood,
Kentucky Museum of Arts + Design, Louisville, KY
Collectors of Wood Art Forum, Santa Fe, NM
2001-04 Turned Wood, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2002 Surface + Form, Craftwest Gallery, Perth, Australia
Branching Out: Contemporary Wood Turning in 2002, Ellipse Art Center, Arlington, VA
Surface + Form, Craftwest Gallery, Perth, Australia
Horn Collection, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
Materials and Contemporary Illusions, Brookfield Craft Center, Brookfield, CT
Collectors' Choice, Collectors of Wood Art Forum, SOFA, Chicago, IL
2001-02 Wood Turning in North America Since 1930,
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN
Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
Nature Takes a Turn, International Juried Exhibition, Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, MN
University of California, Davis, CA
University of New York, Purchase, NY
Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts, Gatlinburg, TN
2001 The Birthday Party, An Installation, Brand Library and Art Center, Glendale, CA
25 Years of Fine Craftsmanship, Brookfield Craft Center, Brookfield, CT
Against the Grain: Turned and Sculpted Wood, McAllen International Museum, McAllen, TX
2000 Horizons 2000: Artist Woodturners, Brookefield Craft Center, Brookefield, CT
American Woodturning: An Emerging Contemporary Art Form, Rochester Art Center, Rochester, NY
The Fine Art of Wood: The Bohlen Collection, Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, MI
1999 Revolution/Evolution, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Collectors' Choice, Collectors of Wood Art Forum, SOFA, Chicago, IL
1997-98 Expressions In Wood: Masterworks from the Wornick Collection, American Craft Museum, New York, NY
McAllen International Museum, McAllen, TX
Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
Turned Wood Now: Redefining the Lathe-Turned Object IV, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
1997 Working Beyond Tradition: A Turned Wood Invitational, Arkansas Arts Center Decorative Arts Museum, AR
1992-98 Turned Wood, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1993-96 Turned Wood - Small Treasures, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1996 Woodwork, Arizona Museum for Youth, Mesa, AZ
Growth Through Sharing, Guilford College Art Center, Greensboro, NC
1995 Points of View: Collectors and Collecting, Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA
allTURNatives, Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art, Ursinus College,
Collegeville, PA
Nature Turning Into Art: The Ruth and David Waterbury Collection of Turned Wood
Bowls, The Carleton Art Gallery, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
1994 Redefining the Lathe-Turned Object III, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Challenge V: International Lathe-Turned Objects, Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art, Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA
1993 Arizona Biennial, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
1992 Revolving Techniques: Thrown, Blown, Spun and Turned, James A. Michener Arts
Center, Doylestown, PA
Redefining the Lathe-Turned Object, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Out Of the Woods, Fine Arts Museum of the South, Mobile, AL
A Double Anniversary Celebration, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
1991 Challenge IV: International Lathe-Turned Objects, Port of History Museum, Philadelphia, PA and touring
1990-91 Woodturning Show, The Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, MA
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Todd Hoyer was born in Wisconsin in 1952 and raised in Phoenix, AZ. He attended Arizona State University from 1970 to 1976 majoring in Manufacturing Engineering and Design Technology.
Hoyer was introduced to woodturning in a grade school woodshop class and returned to it after college in 1977. He started making production items and then moved on to one of a kind forms, utilizing the wood's unique characteristics in each piece.
Hoyer has taught workshops and demonstrated in the United States, Ireland and Australia. His work has been featured in numerous publications in the United States, Germany, England and Canada. His pieces are included in many museum and private collections.
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
My work has been based on change. Each piece and idea is an integral step on the path of growth. From my production items where I learned the use of tools and techniques, to my vessels where I explored the material, each step has been towards greater understanding.
My work has been a reflection of the changes in my life. Consciously and subconsciously, ideas and images have paralleled and expressed major shifts in my life. I have developed a personal language through imagery to communicate. The sphere, which is the heart and soul of my work, is the foundation of most of the series I work with. Simple surface treatments, like blackened interior surfaces, represent the void within. Weathered exteriors represent aging. The combinations of these and other images and forms create a record of growth and change.
My creative process started slowly, like learning to walk, then sped up with time. New ideas and experiences overshadowed material and technical concerns. Soon it became a perpetual process of looking ahead, guided by the strengths and weaknesses of the medium.
Wood is a material, which must be worked with, rather than against, to be successful. The medium influences the choice of direction in design. These choices become pathways leading to other choices and so on, eventually becoming a visual record of oneís life.
My creative process is reliant upon the need not to be dazzled and stalled by technique and the beauty of the material. For me, success is to move forward, balancing the manipulation of form and expression with the organic nature of wood.