Nate Ditzler

My work seeks meaning from the seemingly trivial and overlooked moments of everyday life. I use a combination of handmade and slip cast ceramic forms, fabricated mixed media elements, and modified found objects to give a visual presence to these phenomena. I am fascinated by the way that combining familiar and surreal aspects can cause a shift in an artwork’s meaning, as well as the way in which the viewer can enter into the work based on their own subjective reality. By employing these strategies, I seek to raise questions regarding the complexities and paradoxes found in the everyday.

My visual language is derived from the simplicity and playfulness of the illustrations found in children’s books and single panel comics. I integrate this minimalist aesthetic with nuances of humor to bring lightheartedness to the foibles, anxieties, banalities, and joy found in everyday life. I often use an amorphous blob form in my sculptures as a surrogate for the self in my investigation of the underlying meaning in everyday events. I choose this specific form to express the philosophical idea of the individual as being perpetually unresolved and in a fluid state of growth and change

-- Nate Ditzler

Nate Ditzler grew up on the island of O´ahu, Hawai´i. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Hawai´i at Manoa. In 2016 he completed a Master of Fine Arts at West Virginia University. His sculptures are featured in public collections including The Hawai´i State Foundation for Culture and the Arts, The The Hawai´i State Mayor’s Office for Culture and the Arts, and the Flint Institute of Art. Ditzler has artwork in private collections in the U.S.A., Switzerland, and Canada. Since 2007, he has shown in galleries, juried exhibitions, and group shows nationally and internationally. Nate Ditzler continues to develop art that explores nuances of the human condition, while constantly expanding on his material investigations and means of fabrication. He was previously the Ceramic Area Technician and an Adjunct Professor at Marshall University, an Artist In Residence at The Armory Art Center, in West Palm Beach Florida, and an Artist In Residence at the Lawrence Arts Center, in Lawrence, Kansas. He is currently the Artist in Residence and an Adjunct Professor at Midwestern State University, in Wichita Falls, Texas.