SANTA CLARA, CALIF.- Although Marc D’Estout is now primarily an object maker, his formative art career was rooted in conceptualism and installation. Later his focus shifted to art furniture, which eventually became more conceptual and less functional, until he pivoted to making purely sculptural objects. This exhibition begins at the end of that pivot.

Formed in succinct visual dialogues, D’Estout’s minimalist sculptures and drawings often subtly reveal a dark humor or uncanny, subliminal associations. The artist thinks of his current works as sculptural haikus–formalist reductions. In conceiving them, he experiments with imagery in response to observations of social and cultural memes, personal (mis)communication, politics, or pop culture. His life-long love of automobile and aviation design is also integral to his visual language.

While concept drives his imagery, D’Estout is equally obsessed with using traditional labor-intensive processes to manifest his vision. He has a deep connection with materials and process, predominantly the challenging skills of hand-shaping and fabricating sheet metal forms. Shaped parts are created primarily by hammering flat metal into a sandbag or over curved metal stakes and sometimes manipulated with other specialized tools. The parts are then joined by welding and finished by filing and sanding seams, most often so expertly as to purposefully give the illusion of a single form. Surfaces are uniquely finished with either paints or patina. The application of D’Estout’s vision through these specific hand-crafted processes is uncommon in the context of contemporary art.

D'Estout is also a highly skilled draftsman, and his drawings often play off his sculptural forms or act as studies for them. In yet another body of work, he conjures up sculptures through cleverly repurposing and altering found objects, sometimes combined with new, hand-crafted components.

This twenty-year survey of Marc D’Estout’s work is evidence of his commitment to constant evolution in his creative output through his inquisitiveness, intelligence, finely honed aesthetic sensibilities, and mastery of his chosen mediums.
About the Artist

Marc D’Estout earned an MFA degree from San Jose State University and has had a long career as a multi-disciplinary artist, curator, art director and designer.

D’Estout is a Silicon Valley Creates Grant recipient and has also been awarded a Rydell Fellowship in Santa Cruz County. His work is currently represented by Jack Fischer Gallery in San Francisco, and he has exhibited at numerous venues including: San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery; Aqua Miami; University of Hawai’i Art Gallery; Red Gallery at Savannah College of Art and Design; Houston Center for Contemporary Craft; SFMOMA Artist’s Gallery; Palo Alto Art Center; Petersen Museum, Los Angeles; San Jose Museum of Art; de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University; Richmond Art Center, California; Bedford Gallery/Dean Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek, California; San Jose ICA; NUMU (New Museum of Los Gatos); and the Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz—as well as furniture and design galleries such and LIMN and Coup d’Etat in San Francisco and Gallery of Functional Art in Santa Monica.

D’Estout’s works have been published in several art and design magazines, newspapers, books and catalogs. He is a featured artist in the Juxtapoz’ Car Culture book, and his work was used for the cover image and featured in the significant Graphis book Products by Design. The Thompson Gallery at San Jose State University produced a 48-page monograph chronicling 2-1/2 decades of Marc D’Estout’s art and design work.

In addition to his studio work, D’Estout maintained an active design and teaching career. He most recently held the position of curator for the Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco. For ten years he served as Director for Art and Design for UCSC Extension. Prior to that he held positions as contemporary art curator and exhibit designer for both the Monterey Museum of Art and the Triton Museum of Art. He has also taught a variety of art and design courses at San Jose State University, Santa Clara University, various community colleges in the Bay Area, and Anderson Ranch in Colorado. D’Estout has also served as a juror and guest curator for numerous galleries and arts organizations throughout California.