Sculpture Milwaukee 2019

Magical Thinking is a life-size up-turned top hat, part of any magician’s repertoire of tricks. A magician’s patter misdirects the audience's’ attention away from the slight-of-hand, allowing the magician to do any number of fantastical plays involving animals, cards or scarves. Actual Size Artworks’ piece takes on a more ominous tone because the bunny inside the hat is glowering at the world around her. Is the bunny angry because of the misdirection and sleight-of-hand happening in our political climate?

Pensive depicts African American writer, historian, sociologist, editor and activist W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) in the position of Rodin’s iconic work The Thinker, originally designed in 1880 as the cornerstone for Rodin’s masterpiece The Gates of Hell. In Rodin’s version, The Thinker is 14th century Italian poet Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy, completed in 1320. Dante sits in his well-known position, contemplating the circles of hell as described in Christian theology.

Penguin, 2018, is a self-portrait, raising to the height of the artist. The work is a continuation of his self-portrait series of 1974, when the artist sought to conceal and distort his identity beyond recognition.

Bulloch’s columns and totems refer to the work of early 20th century pioneering Romanian artist Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957), whose “endless column” freed sculpture from the confines of a pedestal.

While the Haas Brothers are active in the high-end art and design worlds, their roots lay in the ore ancient tradition of artisans creating the artful objects that populate daily life.

Matelli’s Hera (half) shows the decaying human ideal against the tantalizing richness of the sweet fruit, culture versus nature as both decompose.

Matelli chooses his ancient figures because they represent decline—of human strength, perhaps of empire. This work plays with our sense of history and the brevity of life, and the human drive to preserve and record the past. Matelli brings this ancient figure to the 21st century, asking us to reflect on the meanings of this juxtaposition in our contemporary language.

Sun & Moon Protector, 2016, is part of O’Brien’s first foray into that most rigid and “high” of art materials, bronze. Sun & Moon Protector has the intense lines of a religious object, assembled with passion.

O’Brien’s work is deeply personal, influenced by self-reflection, his personal relationships and the world that touches him daily.

O'Brien keeps his hand visible in much of his work, and questions why certain materials are more acceptable as art.

Roxy Paine is recognized as one of his generation’s most inventive conceptual artists, whose practice revolves around the impact of modern human technologies on nature, including human nature.

His Dendroids series of haunting silver trees, based on the branching, tree-like habits of cells.

Each branching “tree” is wildly unique, some grasping for the sun’s embrace, some, rooted stoically to a site that can no longer nourish them.

As biologists reveal more about the complex network of communication and nutrient sharing that goes on underground between trees of one species, the more this brutalized tree evokes sympathy.

Curvae in Curvae uses the Latin feminine word curvae, singular of curvus, or bent, curved.

Pepper’s goal is to dominate the materials of the earth—metal and stone—so that they take on a personality and texture that runs counter to the neutral face of modern architecture.

Adorning the Chase Bank's public atrium, Rolón's piece is one of the largest sculptural installations in the Midwest.

The flowers are painted by Rolón then reproduced digitally for vinyl stickers.

Richard Woods choose the color pallete specially for this Milwaukee home.