Professor of Art Exhibits in Chicago

The work of Dayton Castleman, Trinity’s assistant professor of art, is on display at the DePaul University Museum of Art in a show titled “The Nomadic Studio.” This exhibition is part of Studio Chicago, a yearlong collaborative project that focuses on the artist’s studio through exhibitions, talks, publications, tours, and research.

Using mainly cardboard, polystyrene foam, and wood, Castleman constructed a sculptural installation titled “Chicken.” The work depicts a Canadian goose and an F-16 Fighting Falcon jet in what the artist describes as “the moment of their first, and presumably last, kiss.”

“The idea originated after the emergency landing of U.S. Airways flight 1549 in the Hudson River in January of 2009,” said Castleman. “I allowed myself to wonder whether there was some kind of strange attraction that a jetliner might engender in a bird. Eventually the work became about this tragic romance between these two gorgeous flying things.”

Castleman earned an M.F.A. in sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has been on faculty at Trinity since 2008. He specializes in sculpture, site-specific sculpture, and installation.