Walton Creel
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
who lives and works in Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
. Creel is best known for his series Deweaponizing the Gun, which focuses on firearms.
His Art
Deweaponizing the Gun is a series of large scale "drawings" created by shooting complicated patterns through 6x4' white painted sheets of aluminum with a .22 caliber rifle given to him by his father as a present. The images used in this series are of southern wildlife and include: Deer, Owl, Bunny, Opossum, Squirrel, and Wren. When asked how others view his work Creel states, "Whatever view a person already holds on guns is the view they project onto me. If they love guns and think gun ownership is a God-given right, then they see my work as reinforcement of that view. If they think guns should be banned, they see my work as an ironic protest."In 2008 Creel recorded an audio companion for Deweaponizing the Gun, Shooting / Loading. It was released as a limited edition vinyl record and documented the sounds of his creative processes in the field. "Sonically, it’s reminiscent of pop guns, or firecrackers, or a screen door slamming, not the huge roar and bang you hear in movies or on TV, instead, the sound is actually slight, tinny, high end, the shots fired create a strange spare soundscape of not quite rhythms, the recording hissy and lo-fi, adding texture and grit, not the easiest listening, but still pretty fascinating, in both concept and execution."
Awards and Honors
- 2009 Resident Artist, Coleman Center for the Arts, York, Alabama.
- 2008 Emerging Artist, Magic City Art Connection, Birmingham, Alabama.