BÈJU DUDALLI
Evolution Dudali, 2023
PVC, stainless steel

Dudali playfully explores the age-old question: Where do we come from?

Evolution Dudali shows Blue Dudali searching for his "missing link", namely his bellybutton. Standing across the trail, Red Dudali points to an ape sized Orange Dudali who hangs upside down from the tree canopy. It soon becomes obvious that Orange Dudali holds the clue in his hand: the blue missing link.

CHELSEA DARLING
Uplifting Our Ecosystem, 2023
Steel

Linger for a moment here. Do we have the attention it takes to fully embrace the gifts of the Earth? It takes longer than just your first glance. Longer than it takes a text message to send. Yes, even longer than an Instagram reel.

Earth has its own time. It’s easy to forget, when we’ve strived so much as a species to condense our processes into quick, quick, quick. Meanwhile Earth reaches out with a bounty of cattails. A blessing of bees. The laughter of flowers. A conversation of joy, waiting for you to slow down and hear it.

I took time to respond to this conversation myself, slowly crafting my own reply. To appreciate the details and forge them in iron. To celebrate the delicate balance of this ecosystem, and recreate them in a way that I hope inspires others to embrace them as well. Please, enjoy.

DOROTHY O’CONNOR
Silent Migration, 2023
Wood veneer

In celebration of Don White Memorial Park, and its close proximity to water being a draw for migratory birds, I have created a flock of nine wood veneer geese. I chose geese not only because of what they symbolically represent; determination, joy, wisdom, family and loyalty but also because geese travel long distances and inadvertently carry with them pieces of each environment they visit on their journey, an important illustration of how the health of one place can carry and impact the next. Their migration connects us and the natural world within each stop. This journey of connection is a good reminder that the way we treat the natural world in our immediate surroundings can directly affect others far away. It highlights the importance and wisdom of treating our environments with care and emphasizes that we are not just individuals but community and in a sense, family. Each member of the flock has the design of a tree branch pattern underneath the wing and tail, honoring the materials used to create the flock and the natural beauty that surrounds them.

JANE CHEEK
They Danced Among the Trees, 2023
Mixed Media

They Danced Among The Trees is inspired by memories of twirling in forests and watching dappled light dance through green canopies. My installation work is an intentional exploration of joy and a deliberate act of choosing happiness. Drawing inspiration from cherished memories of experiences in nature and with loved ones, I create large-scale installations that magnify moments of happiness, aiming to sustain joy in my own life. Through my work, I delve into the fragility of joy, the significance of gratitude, the importance of memorializing moments, and the ever-changing nature of happiness. The colorful and kinetic work plays with the reflective and refractive properties of light while casting colorful shadows beyond the physical boundaries of the installation. Using simple shapes, contours, and familiar imagery, I create artwork that amplifies joy in a hyperbolic format. I hope that my work will inspire a sense of wonder and delight in the viewer and serve as a reminder to cherish and savor the happy moments in life.

JEFFRY LOY
Flower and Child, 2023 
Painted steel and stainless gazing balls

Flock, 2023
Painted steel and stainless steel

At the heart of Flower and Child lies anamorphic flowers, their graceful forms reaching towards the heavens. Each blossom symbolizes the enduring presence of the parental figure, gracefully overseeing the tender growth of their beloved child. Just as a flower emerges from a humble seed, the vibrant hues adorning each petal reflect the unique individuality of both parent and child, blossoming side by side. Mirrored heads, delicately positioned within the sculpture, serve as portals to infinite perspectives, reflecting the ethereal beauty of the surrounding sky and flora. These mirrored surfaces create a multiplicity of individual viewpoints, inviting viewers to immerse themselves in the diverse tapestry of their environment. Each reflection represents a unique vantage point, encapsulating the varied experiences and perspectives that shape our understanding of the world we inhabit.

From the earth with an almost elemental force, Flock emerges as a whirlwind of creative energy, mirroring the raw power of a swirling tornado. The sculpture's organic form evokes a sense of motion frozen in time, as if capturing a fleeting moment when the very essence of flight is harnessed and transformed into a tangible presence. Within this captivating vortex, a multitude of birds takes flight, their wings interwoven in a graceful ballet, encircling one another in a majestic display of unity and harmony.

JONATHAN SACHS
Rolling Spheres, 2021 
Aluminum, plastic, stainless steel, paint 

Birds on a Wire, 2022
Aluminum, plastic, stainless steel, paint

Adjustable, 2023
Aluminum, plastic, stainless steel, paint

The Rolling Spheres sculpture allows visitors to create a wide range of looks merely by safely rotating the painted plastic spheres.

The work requires no electricity, no instructions; people walk up and immediately understand that they can and should change it.

The Birds on a Wire sculpture allows visitors to rearrange the birds by rotating them and sliding them back and forth. Each bird is painted in strong colors on one side and in shades of gray on the other.

People can tell stories by setting the bird’s colors, or by having many faces one way and one, or just a few, face the other way, which tells a tale of isolation or confrontation. The birds are changed nearly every day in the outdoor location where they are sited.

AdjustAble is the newest and most complex work. It can be arranged in nearly infinite ways. Visitors can slide four-side boxes up and down and also rotate them, so that the work can quickly change from yellows to blacks and endless mixes.

Like the other works, it needs no instructions: people can simply walk up and change it around. A hidden braking mechanism gives the boxes enough tension so that they stay where they are placed.

MADORA FREY
Prismatic, 2023
Steel, wood, rope, glass, plexiglass mirror

Prismatic offers visitors a moment of wonderment along the pathway. Its form and materials call to mind the enigmatic pyramids of Egypt and the simple awe found in string art projects from the artist's childhood. Viewers are invited to walk beneath and gaze up into the interior to discover their image reflected, refracted, and merged with the surrounding landscape and lively colors and textures of the sculpture. The passageway through the sculpture frames a view of the peaceful Chattahoochee River, highlighting the transcendent and restorative powers one can find when experiencing the outdoors.

MATTHIAS NEUMANN
Xabana (34°00'38"N 84°20'12"W), 2023
Wood, acrylic

Xabana (34°00'38"N 84°20'12"W) is an inhabitable sculptural environment that acts both as a colorful marker and as a negotiated spatial environment in extension of the contiguous public space. The work continues a trajectory of temporary public art installations that the artist has been engaged with over the past decade, investigating the material and constructive implications and potentials of temporary public sculpture that is conceived with a limited existence in mind. Constructed out of regular 2x4 lumber the work will age over time, and thus mark the passage of time, to be eventually deconstructed at the end of the exhibition, and the material to be cycled back into the material cycle of the construction industry. A recurring interest in the artist's work is how space, material assembly and related processes allow for the experience of the spatial condition in relation to its place, and to bring into focus notions of material, cultural and spatial ecology embedded in the built environment.

OLU AMODA
Miles, 2020
Welded repurposed automatic clutch discs

Most haulage trucks that move household and food items from farms, seaports and factories across Mexico and Canada to and within America have spare gearboxes. If breakdowns result from faulty gearboxes, they are replaced with an extra and faulty one sent to Larry's shop. One out of every haulage truck that delivers goods to Walmart, Costco, DHL and other stores must have the spare fixed in Larry's shop.

Most folks are intrigued by the beauty of an automobile's exterior, but the engine's interior is equally as beautiful, if not more. The anatomy of automatic transmission gearboxes shows a combination of discs in a particular order that optimizes performance. Heating, bending, cutting, and twisting are the dynamics of a moving a vehicle's clutch discs. In sculpting, Miles creative process requires annealing and heating the clutch discs to bend and twist easily. One of my creative strategies as an artist is to collaborate with the objects and be deemed successful if the audience can recognize its primary function against the new role. Delightfully, I explore the composite of the clutch disc as dictated by each of the discs in composition. This piece is configured to vibrate or rock gentling by winds that transit from the inner and outer, allowing for free passage of the current. The void and solid collect dust and later patinated rainfall amassing energy through time. The cast shadow evokes latent energy from the matter and the power of spoken words into the metal. It is no coincidence that sculpting Miles was actualized in the blacksmith shop's rare yard; it resonates with the elements - earth, wind, and fire, the divine and derived intervention, the latent energy that propelled this sculpting. The sculptor rhythmically dances to music by hammering and shaping the clutch discs from the anvil. At the same time, heat energy is generated electrically as the mig-wire welds the clutch discs into a web of forms as the sculptor sweat cools the metal. All the clutch discs repurposed in the piece are my payment for cleaning Larry's Shop at the close of his business. The title Miles metaphorically speaks to the horizontal displacement of objects and their fruition into collectable art pieces when repurposed.

SAMUEL CARTER
Woodnotts, 2023
Mixed Media

The idea for Woodknotts emerged from a walk my daughter and I took through the nature trails at Leita Thompson Park, bouncing ideas back and forth about what kind of odd creatures might live there just out of sight. Rather than listing off the standard issue elves, pixies, and gnomes, we began developing the idea of small woodland creatures that grow and hatch from tree burls and become something between a plant and an animal, protectors of the forests in the same vein as Dr. Seuss' "The Lorax". The Woodknotts were born. Generally, much of my work tends to come from this type of origin story. My art is rarely a deep seeded expression of my innermost desires or my critique on social, political, and cultural issues. There's plenty of that available to view and experience and contemplate. Most of my art comes from stupid stories and inside jokes with my friends, silly puns and dad jokes with my kids, or faces that I see in clouds and in woodgrain and in piles of trash. I love dumpster diving and scavenging for discarded things to incorporate into my work. In fact, about 90% of the Woodknotts came from things that had been tossed aside by someone else. For me, making art is a compulsive act, a Sisyphean task that I will do until my hands fall off and my mind turns into tapioca pudding. To finish a project is to watch the boulder tip and begin to roll back down the hill, so that I may start all over on the next one. I take the process of making my art very seriously, but I'm rarely serious at all about my artwork.