Image © Fin Macrae
There are a lot of artists who claim to be green these days, but few truly embrace the concept like Patrick Dougherty. His surreal and intricate twig-and-branch sculptures evoke a unique connection between human and natural structures, the pure essence of green design. A skilled carpenter as well as a sculptor, Dougherty credits a ‘childhood spent wandering the forests of North Carolina’ for his affinity for trees. It is an enthusiasm that has led to some of the most interesting works of the up most green relevance in recent years.
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With a dazzling variety of forms seamlessly intertwined with their context, his sculptures evoke fantastical images of nests, cocoons, cones, castles, and beehives. Over the last twenty-five years, Dougherty has built more than two hundred works throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia that range from stand-alone structures to a kind of modern primitive architecture.
Constructed on-site using locally sourced materials and local volunteer labor, Dougherty’s sculptures are tangles of twigs and branches that have been transformed into something unexpected and wild, elegant and artful, and often humorous.
As organic matter, the stick sculptures eventually disintegrate and fade back into the landscape.
Here are some example of his work
Image © Nell Campbell
image © Doyle Dean
Image © Paul Kodama
Find out more about him » Patrick Dougherty
