Bob Trotman

Business as Usual
September 5 – October 31, 2014

Since Model Citizens, his 2002 exhibition at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, Bob Trotman added sound, motion and electronic elements to his carved wooden figures. Through an ongoing and evolving series titled Business As Usual, he continued to probe and prod the hidden, and the not-so-hidden, sources of corporate power, privilege and pretense that affect daily life in our culture. This installation included sculpture and video created over three years as well as a comprehensive selection of terra cotta maquettes and preparatory drawings.

Trotman grew up the son of a banker in Winston-Salem, N.C., and graduated with a degree in philosophy from Washington and Lee University. Self-taught in art, he has maintained a studio in the rural foothills of Western North Carolina for 40 years. Trotman has received two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and four grants from the North Carolina Arts Council. His work is in the permanent collections of the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, North Carolina Museum of Art, Museum of Art of the RISD Museum, and the Museum of Art and Design, among others. Two of his sculptures were recently chosen for State of the Art, a national survey of contemporary art organized by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Business As Usual was sponsored by Sarah Belle and Neil November.