Black and White Tipped Flower captures the tornadoes, black earth, and tenacious animal energy of the Piney Woods of southeast Texas. Surls grew up in a house that his father built, and his art comes out of a lifetime of working with hand tools and “making do.” He believes that everything he creates is both a self-portrait and an image of the land that shaped him. Flower is scary and comical, an animal-plant-man-creature rising from the thickets and looking for a mate. It calls to mind Surls’s goal to be “a hump-backed beast with golden hands,” unafraid to tap into the life-force of his home ground for images that tickle and terrify.
Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006
- Title
-
Black and White Tipped Flower
- Artist
- Date
- 1982
- Location
- Dimensions
- approx. 57 1⁄2 x 39 x 37 in. (146.0 x 99.0 x 94.0 cm.) irregular
- Credit Line
-
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Museum purchase and gift in honor of Adelyn Dohme Breeskin from her friends
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- burnt white oak
- Classifications
- Keywords
-
- Object – flower
- Abstract
- Object Number
-
1986.52
- Palette
- Linked Open Data
- Linked Open Data URI
