“Making the bottom line the top priority puts enormous pressure on human values. It is a practice that has long characterized the corporate world, and now, increasingly, also characterizes government policy. What becomes of those who are caught up in this system, either as perpetrators or victims?”
Bob Trotman
The UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture and Davidson College are proud to present the spirited and very timely works of Bob Trotman in Business As Usual at the Projective Eye Gallery, September 8-December 14 (curated by Crista Cammaroto), and at the Van Every/Smith Galleries, October 19-December 8 (curated by Lia Newman). Each venue will display different works; between both exhibitions, more than 30 sculptures, 50 maquettes, and 18 drawings will be displayed.
The Projective Eye Gallery will host an opening reception on September 8, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm; the opening reception for the Davdison College exhibition will be held October 19 from 7:00 to 8:30 pm. Trotman will speak about both exhibitions in an artist lecture at 7 pm on November 2 at UNC Charlotte Center City.
Bob Trotman was born in 1947 in Winston-Salem, NC, and for 42 years has maintained a studio in the foothills of Western North Carolina. Working mostly in wood, but also using motion, light, and sound, Trotman satirically suggests a confluence of power, privilege, and pretense that secretly, or not so secretly, shapes our world.
Trotman’s characters work out what he describes as “the struggle for self-determination in the face of standardized social pressures,” a search for an “authentic existence versus wealth and success”: the crack in a forehead foreshadowing the eventual panic attack, the stain on a cheek resembling a tear, the upside down individual - vulnerable to larger, unseen Machiavellian forces.
His work has been widely exhibited in solo and group exhibitions including at The Halsey Institute, Charleston, SC; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC; Visual Arts Center of Richmond, VA; The Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA; and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR.
Trotman has been the recipient of two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, four grants from the North Carolina Arts Council, and was a finalist for the 1858 Prize from the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, SC. His work is included in several important permanent collections, such as the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Weatherspoon Museum of Art, The Mint Museum, Museum of Art of the Rhode Island School of Design, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Art and Design in New York, among others.
Business as Usual will also be in exhibition at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design at NC State University, February 1-July 1, 2018. The exhibitions are accompanied by a new monograph about Bob Trotman, a collaborative result of The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, College of Charleston, School of the Arts; The Gregg Museum of Art & Design, NC State University; Van Every/Smith Galleries, Davidson College; and the Projective Eye Gallery of the UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture.
This exhibition is presented in celebration of the North Carolina Arts Council's 50th Anniversary.