Earl Dismuke
Earl Dismuke is a Mississippi sculptor who is dedicated to enhancing community life through the power of public art, all the while pursuing his passion of creating his own body of work. He graduated in 2007 from the University of Mississippi with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis in sculpture.
His sculptures are abstract, made from wood, steel cast aluminum and found objects. Some of these found objects you see in your everyday life, but others are rather bulky industrial metal castoffs that he finds while searching scrap yards and fabrication plants. He takes these individual scraps and objects and places them together into balanced compositions. All of his sculptures are created from recycled objects.
Earl’s compositions are influenced by things he is experiencing in his current season of life, such as goals, relationships, joys, fears, family and faith. His work tells his story, but he likes to leave enough ambiguity in the work that the audience can make their own interpretations. “I think that by inviting the viewer to interpret what the work means or what the artist was thinking, the viewer is forced to bring something of themselves into the work. I believe this binds the artist and the viewer.”
Earl is a co-founder of the Yokna Sculpture Trail, a bi-annual rotating outdoor sculpture exhibition in Oxford, Mississippi. He is a recipient of the Mississippi Arts Commission 2019 Visual Arts Fellowship Grant, and a member of the International Sculpture Center. He curated the outdoor portion of the University of Mississippi Museum of Art’s first major indoor/outdoor exhibition. The show featured the work of internationally renowned sculptor, George Tobolowsky. Earl recently led the effort to bring Oxford its first major outdoor mural.
He is interested in connecting people through art, and enjoys working with artists from all walks of life. Earl works out of his studio in Oxford, Mississippi, where he lives with his wife and four children.