untitled (a third flag), carved and painted wood with wire, 41 x 8 x 8 in, 2026
My carved mittens feel more like boats or fish, something swimming. They have that movement even while being particular to the mittens observed. (The hands seem to have been left behind.) They are whitish in color with a black brown undercoat. They are placed on a way oversized book, Wonders of the World. Home base is on adjacent pages that have been painted white. White on white, mittens on paper, weight on pages. Lift the mittens, turn the pages, and now replaced, they are on a fully colored image of Petra, or Petronas Towers, or other. (I have come to realize these are my father’s traveling mittens.)
Labrador, carved and painted wood with book, 5 x 18 x 24 in, 2021
Yellow Smash Up, carved and painted wood on chair, 47 x 24 x 5 in., 2013
Blue Curtain, carved and painted wood on room sized platform, 5 x 12 x 18 ft, 2012
20 Running Fingers, carved and painted wood, 5 x 10 x 10 in, 2022
The Floridian, carved and painted wood, 47 x 28 x 6 in, 2023
detail carton fragments, carved and painted wood, 50 in x 10 ft x 12 ft, 2021
Tom Fools Knot, carved and painted wood on wood construction with stool, 48 x 40 x 36 in, 2023
detail Skates, carved and painted wood on constructed push cart, 48 x 60 x 48 in, 2024 iteration
Hewitt was born in New York City in 1949 and grew up on Long Island. Having graduated from Colby College (BA) and the University of Pennsylvania (MFA), he worked at a Maine boatyard and foundry before becoming a Professor of Art, now Emeritus, at the University of Southern Maine. His work has been shown with prominent twenty and twenty first century artists. In 2016, the Portland Museum of Art presented Duncan Hewitt: Turning Strange, a selection of Hewitt’s work from the previous twenty years. In 2024 his work was exhibited in a two person show, Good Morning Midnight, at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art and at the Sarah Bouchard Gallery, You Don’t Know Me. In addition to a dozen solo shows (four at the ICON gallery) he has completed five public art projects.
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Mostly he remakes nearby things, carving and painting wood - silent, felt - maybe, no longer what they seem to be.
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