Admissions
Programs
Student Life
About PNCA
Initiatives

Meet the Artists

David Eckard

scribe

— BFA Faculty —

David Eckard is an internationally recognized artist who is known for both his elaborate and exquisite sculptures as well as his uncompromising site-specific performances. Critic Randy Gragg said of David’s work, he “creates a theatrical set that blends elements of the menace of Roman Coliseum battles, medieval contests of chivalry, the discipline of the ballet studio and cruel innocence of the playground.”

The early years of his life were spent on an Iowa farm, and his sculptural work—with their clamps, handle bars, pulleys and strings— often take on the look of antique farm implements that have been adapted for some new, exotic rituals.

podium“Podium,” photograph, 2004

Podium, a version of the performance David is performing this evening, became a street corner classic during PICA’s TBA festival last fall. Podium transforms the artist into a transient town crier as he pushes his elaborately designed podium to deliver monologues. It was called by one critic “heroic work —the most honest thing I have seen all week.”

The roving performance surprised unsuspecting audiences as the six foot high Podium rolled into playgrounds, parking lots, street corners, and assorted unlikely locations all across Portland. From his perch in the podium David delivers his original monologue. He says of the spoken word piece, “Part stump speech or rally proclamation, the text is a collage of personal revelations, facts, poetry, and aural non-sequiturs.”

tournament“Tournament,” 2004

Linking all of David Eckard’s work, both objects and events, is an investigation of conditions of masculinity, endurance, authority, and absurdity.

David Eckard is an instructor in the sculpture and foundation program and is chair of the thesis project at PNCA. He began his own education at Iowa State University, completing it at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After beginning his career in Chicago, he moved to the Northwest in the early 1990s. His work has been exhibited internationally and has been written about and reviewed in The New York Times, Flash Art, Art in America, Artnews and Sculpture.