OLI WATT | More Decoys | SHELF

October 26 - December 12, 2025

VIEW EXHIBITION

For two years, beginning in 2020, I worked on a series of 101 non-functional decoy forms, inspired by Chicago artist Roger Brown’s collection of duck decoys. I collected local wood from downed trees, found objects and, occasionally, purchased materials, to create a family of water fowl decoys. Working with ideas of attraction (a decoy’s function) and distraction (creating useless objects during a pandemic lockdown), I allowed the materials to dictate the forms and the processes used. Some decoys involved long, laborious manipulation of materials, such as wood carving or repetitive drilling, nailing, and gluing. Others were finished within minutes. Some were highly planned, while others were improvised. Ranging from the elegant to the abject, each completed decoy presented me with ideas and challenges that led to the next. Overall, 101 Decoys is an exercise in understanding, utilizing, and undermining repetition as a process and a tool.

Oli Watt lives and works in Chicago. He is an associate professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he teaches printmaking. Oli’s artwork has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn; Spencer Brownstone Gallery, New York; the International Center of Graphic Art, Slovenia; Walpodenakademie Mainz, Germany; La Band Art Gallery, Los Angeles, and Rocket Gallery, London. His work has appeared in Art on Paper, Art US, the New Art Examiner and Village Voice. He runs a project space called “free range” in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood.