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Inverting Utopia with Sculptor Bob Trotman

This past weekend, the North Carolina Museum of Art, in Raleigh, unveiled “Inverted Utopias,” an exhibition by Bob Trotman, a 1969 alumnus of Washington and Lee. The exhibition runs until March 27, 2011, in a new gallery that showcases North Carolina artists.

Trotman’s exhibition comprises works from the NCMA, private collections and the artist himself. He also produced a new piece (“Vertigo,” pictured here) under commission from NCMA for the permanent collection. He’ll give a lecture there on Dec. 5.

Trotman, a native of North Carolina who lives in Casar, N.C., majored in philosophy at W&L. The former school-teacher and furniture maker writes on his website, “As a figurative sculptor my concern is the exploration, interpretation, and representation of the human body as a primal medium for projecting thought and feeling: in the expressive language of its poses and dress, its gestures, its facial expressions, and in its disposition in relation to its surroundings.”

The Staniar Gallery at W&L’s Lenfest Center displayed his show “Business as Usual” in the spring of 2008. Some of the many museums with Trotman pieces include the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Art and Design in New York. Legendary art patrons Frances Lewis and her late husband, Sydney Lewis, a member of the undergraduate Class of 1940 and the law Class of 1943, also own work by Sydney’s fellow alum.

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