MCA DENVER commissioned Dickey to create work for the MCA CAFE in response to landscape architect Karla Dakin’s rooftop garden. Dickey’s interior installation Museum as Theater as Garden is a collection of ceramic plants that bring the garden into the MCA CAFE. Inspired by the 360 degree horizon view, Dickey’s low dense mounds hug the ground plane. The props point the viewer toward the garden creating a dialogue between exterior and interior environments to heighten the drama of the theater Dickey imagines.

Dickey – born in the United States in 1964 – lives and works in Denver, Colorado. She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence and her MFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Dickey has exhibited work at RULE Gallery, Denver, CO; Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams; Sherry Leedy Gallery, Kansas City, MO; Garth Clark Gallery, New York, NY; The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA; and Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL.

Above: Kim Dickey, Museum as Theater as Garden, 2007, installation of six glazed terracotta sculptures in the MCA CAFE. Courtesy of the artist.

Photo by Allen Clutter.