Born: 1946, Ames, IA
Resides: Bozeman, MT

"John Buck is a maker. His carved wood sculpture, block prints and rubbings look hand wrought, homemade. The surfaces could almost be clay or bread dough, with marks left behind by the maker’s hand. Even works that are several steps removed from the original, such as the bronze castings, leave us with a sense of stillness, of a quiet craftsman chipping patiently at a block of wood.

Buck’s figures are simple nudes whose heads resolve into graceful abstract designs, as if they are sprouting freeform thought bubbles that balance on their shoulders to express the inexpressible. In the kinetic works these abstractions rotate overhead like psychological whirligigs but even in the stationary pieces there is a dynamism in these precarious cerebral still lives suggestive of the duality of human consciousness. Below, the figures are beautiful ideals, man and woman in their prime; above the shoulders though, things get complicated. Spheres and cones are balanced with miniature cites and curvy forms that look like they squiggled out of a Hans Arp painting. Whole abstract worlds weigh on their shoulders. In Buck’s vision, the body is a place of peace but the mind is a three-ring circus.

Buck’s panels are more mysterious, completely made up of private symbols. Carved neatly into box-like formats, these panels seem like display cabinets for some eclectic collection. Hand-carved leaves, sea shells, animals heads and bits of chinoiserie float like mystical road signs, encapsulated in shadow boxes and hinting at narrative but never quite giving it up."

--Margaret Hawkins, October, 2005