Bill Wolff: ORCHARD
January 29 - March 28, 2026
Reception & Artist Talk:
Friday, March 20 from 5:00 - 7:00pm
Exhibition on view:
Tuesday-Saturday 11:00AM-4:00PM
Orchard is a post-sabbatical exhibition by Bill Wolff that brings together public, collaborative work created during his 2024 sabbatical in Japan (Reflections) and a new body of sculptural objects made immediately after. United by gesture, mark-making, and lived experience, the works reflect a decisive branching in Wolff’s practice—away from predetermined imagery and toward material-led, responsive making. The sculptural works are primarily carved and assembled from trees Wolff has lived with over time, many grown, pruned, or gathered in Salisbury and surrounding regions. Peach, oak, walnut, cherry, cypress, and threatened butternut, woods are left unstained, allowing material histories to remain visible. Minimal forms and subtle anthropomorphic gestures emerge through cutting, hollowing, and assembly, meeting the wood “halfway” and foregrounding sustainability, material economy, and long-term relationship to place.
Reflections—work made during his sabbatical and on view in Orchard—features drawings created in collaboration with 93 second-grade students in Tokyo and Wolff’s own responses to each of the city’s 23 wards, laser-engraved onto aluminum panels and installed as a kinetic public artwork. Together, the drawings and sculptures in Orchard reflect Wolff’s ongoing commitment to community engagement, organic material, and nearly three decades of sculptural exploration grounded in process, place, and meaning.
Bill Wolff is Associate Professor and head of the sculpture program at Salisbury University on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, as well as current Art Department Chair. His work in wood, metal and installation has been exhibited locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. In recent years, Wolff has begun building and installing community-based public sculpture including All Together, a 10’ tall bronze sculpture containing 206 hands, life-cast from community members in Salisbury, Maryland. Wolff holds a Bachelor in Fine Arts degree in sculpture from Binghamton University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from Louisiana State University. From 2005 to 2009 he lived in Japan as a Monbukagakusho scholar at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, now known as Tokyo University of the Arts, where he received an MA in wood sculpture. From 2009-2014 he lived and worked in Rochester, N.Y. where he taught 3D design at the Rochester Institute of Technology. In 2024, Wolff returned to Japan and built a temporary, outdoor public art work, Reflections, which includes drawings made by 93 2nd grade students from a neighborhood elementary school in Tokyo.
