Deborah Butterfield | Big Piney | 2016

Montana-based artist Deborah Butterfield has been making art depicting horses since the 1980s. She has observed that horses were historically used for war, the machines that helped win empires. Butterfield is interested in hors calm dignity and power. The artist readily acknowledges that many of her mares are self-portraits, drawing out the nature in human nature.

The presence of this animal, Big Piney, in the urban environment of downtown Milwaukee throws into relief the rub between nature and culture. While we have done our utmost to control the hard surfaces in our cities, nature is always present. Butterfield mirrors the temporality of life when using sticks and branches to create her works; but in her bronze statues, like Big Piney, she is able to preserve the majesty of these animals, and creates a permanent, and more peaceful, memorial for horses and their influence in the development of civilizations.

Deborah Butterfield’s horses have been presented in museums across the country and outdoor parks and sculpture gardens, where the proximity to nature casts new readings on the work.