SCAD Lacoste Unveils Promenade de Sculptures 

SCAD unveils the new sculpture promenade at on the occasion of SCAD Lacoste’s milestone 20th year in Provence

October 2022, Lacoste, France - SCAD is thrilled to debut La Promenade de Sculptures, a new permanent installation of 10 large-scale works at the university’s international location, SCAD Lacoste, an imaginative center for the study of art and design in the idyllic Provence region of southern France. Curated by SCAD President and Founder Paula Wallace and SCAD Chief Operating Officer Glenn Wallace, and organized by SCAD Museum of Art associate curator Ben Tollefson, La Promenade de Sculptures will open to the public following a formal dedication, Sunday, Oct. 16, hosted by President Wallace. The university invites students, visitors, and residents of the region to admire these imaginative works, embodying the ingenuity of the university’s global network of artists.

“A love letter to Provence writ large, SCAD Lacoste’s new Promenade de Sculptures debuts this fall in the picturesque Luberon Valley,” said SCAD President & Founder Paula Wallace. “This new collection of contemporary sculpture — including works by 10 student, alumni, and faculty artists — is curated and presented by SCAD: The International University for Creative Professions in celebration of 20 years of SCAD Lacoste. The public is cordially invited to tour our magnificent La Promenade.”

Festivities for the sculpture garden’s dedication concluded an expertly curated year-long series of events and exhibitions honoring SCAD Lacoste’s milestone 20th year and celebrating its prominence as the epicenter of cultural enrichment in the region. As the globally recognized leader in heritage conservation, preservation, and adaptive reuse, SCAD has been heralded over the course of two decades for its heroic efforts reviving the ancient village and re- establishing Lacoste as an idyllic and inspirational haven for artists. Numerous works featured in La Promenade de Sculptures pay homage to the beauty and magic of the region, with many of the artists drawing from personal experiences and journeys in Lacoste. For more information, visit scad.edu/lacoste20.

FEATURED WORKS INCLUDE:

JUSTIN W. ARCHER | b. 1989, Atlanta, Georgia, USA | SCAD sculpture professor En Plein Air, 2022, Bronze

Justin W. Archer conceptualized En Plein Air in the spirit of the Greek sculpture The Winged Victory of Samothrace (190 BC), aiming to capture a similar harmony between beauty and permanence, strength and ephemerality — qualities that parallel the medieval structures of southern France. Rising 7 feet tall, the bronze-cast figure stands purposefully, gazing out at the sprawling landscape. Pixilation-style weathering on the surface of the sculpture evinces Archer’s exploration of the fragmentation of the figure and, for the artist, “serves as a reminder that, although we experience hardship, we can breathe in the hope of creation and offer that to others.”

Archer is an Atlanta-based sculptor and arts educator whose work considers the fragility and wonder found in the contemporary human experience. His work has been exhibited at venues including Cross- Pollination Art Lab in Atlanta, the Louisiana Biennial, Ro2 Art and the Love Field Airport in Dallas, and Miami University in Ohio, among others, and is held in private and public collections.

ASHLEY BENTON | b. 1968, Atlanta, Georgia, USA | B.F.A., painting, 1990

When they asked her “why?,” Odile thought about it and replied, “why not?,” and the lock on her heart opened, 2022, Bronze

Ashley Benton found inspiration for this sculpture during her time as a 2019 SCAD Alumni Atelier ambassador in Lacoste, where she began a new body of work — a series of small, seated figures commingling human and animal forms. Expanding the scale of those works, this sculpture is Benton’s largest work to date. 

A mixed-media artist based in Savannah, Georgia, Benton examines the fantastical and emotional experiences that hover in the “in-between” in figurative sculptures that juxtapose human and animal forms. Her work is held in the collections of prestigious institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia. She is represented by Ivy Brown Gallery in New York; Wally Workman Gallery in Austin, Texas; Gingerbread Square Gallery in Key West, Florida; and Roan and Black in Saugatuck, Michigan.

MILAN BHULLAR | b. 1990, Pune, India | M.F.A. furniture design Transfiguration, 2022, Stainless steel

The expansion of an idea Milan Bhullar developed in a class at SCAD, Transfiguration is a series of five stainless steel menhirs, or liths, of varying sizes and colors that together foster a sense of introspection and retrospection, as viewers experience their shifting reflections in the faceted structure with the expansive landscape of Lacoste as backdrop. 

Bhullar’s background in architecture sparked an interest in hands-on practices as a multidisciplinary artist and designer. Her work centers the physical, tactile act of making and engagement with materials, offering a means of self-discovery, introspection, and healing while examining themes of reflection, optimism, resilience, growth, and transformation.

BRADLEY L. BOWERS | b. 1986, Dallas, Texas, USA M.A., furniture design, 2012; B.F.A., industrial design, 2010 Ooma, 2022, 3D-printed bioplastic 

A reflection on the ancient need to seek quiet contemplation, Bradley L. Bowers’ Ooma is a response to our contemporary age — a culture bombarded with distractions. The double-curved dome references historic architecture, while employing cutting-edge 3D bioplastic printing technology. The intricate geometric latticework creates a permeable threshold, juxtaposing the interiority and solace of the self with the exteriority of the surrounding sweeping views of the Luberon Valley.

Through site-specific new-media installations, pop-up experiences, and bespoke works for fashion brands, art institutions, and private clients, Bowers explores the dynamic overlap between rapid-prototyping and artisanal craftsmanship. Using contemporary digital-modeling tools in unison with traditional craft techniques, he creates objects and forms that redefine norms. With each of his diverse projects, Bowers investigates his affinity for exploratory work of the highest quality.

CARLA CONTRERAS | b. 1991, Quito, Ecuador | M.F.A., painting, 2020 Harmonie, 2022, Steel and automotive paint

Inspired by the balance and creative energy of the Chattahoochee River ecosystems near her current home in Atlanta, Carla Contreras’ first large-scale sculpture, Harmonie, results from a contemplative process driven by curiosity and fascination. With its vibrant colors and patterns, the work speaks to the “artist-nature-creation” phenomenon experienced, as Contreras describes, “when attuned to a striking sunset by the river, the harmonious compositions of rock outcrops in the woods, the complexity of organisms like lichens, or the overwhelming smell of the lavender fields.”

An Ecuadorian-born, Atlanta-based multidisciplinary visual artist and educator, Contreras explores ideas related to the human condition and ecology through different processes including drawing, painting, sculpture, and installation. Her artistic practice mutates and evolves according to variables of time, place, and personal and global circumstances, manifesting in non-objective, biomorphic, pattern-based mixed-media works informed by natural and urban ecosystems.

KENDALL GLOVER | b. 1987, Richmond, Virginia, USA | B.F.A., fibers, 2009 Tectonic Arch, 2022

Powder-coated steel and Corten steel

Tectonic Arch emerges from Kendall Glover’s fascination with the arch form. Inspired by her collage practice, the work challenges viewers’ assumptions of positive, negative, and dimensional space through the layering of colors and forms. As Glover states, “when existing as a void, the arch may represent a passageway or portal. Stones of an archway hold each other in tension, distributing the pressure of the load. In Tectonic Arch, parts combine in a shared gesture, like alphabetic components that together form a phrase.”

A New York-based sculptor, Glover uses a range of mediums, from paper to steel, to examine the familiar yet off-beat forms poised in communicative gestures that suggest an undisclosed narrative. Her work has been included in exhibitions such as Plantasia at Petty Cash in Brooklyn; Slax at Goldsmiths in London; Variant at Conduit Gallery in Dallas; A Sight Of at Proposition Studios in London; and A Show of Shows at KIOSK in Marseille, France. She has participated in artist residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, and Minoterie 21 in Guéveneux, France.

ANDREW HERZOG | b. 1990, Coatesville, Pennsylvania, USA M.A., graphic design, 2013; B.F.A., graphic design, 2012 HERE/ICI, 2022, Semi-polished aluminum

Andrew Herzog’s background in graphic design and keen interest in language as a ubiquitous medium informs his sculptural practice. This 7-foot-tall, reflective, lenticular structure features a typeface inspired by French street signs and reads either “here” or “ici” depending on the viewer’s perspective. For Herzog, “public art should have some reflection of the space it inhabits.” An homage to its location and its international audience, the work’s reflective surface takes on the attributes of the landscape. A meditative reminder to honor the present moment, it serves as an inflection point marking an ever- changing time and place, as mutable as the viewer’s own experiences.

An interdisciplinary conceptual artist and designer, Herzog works “medium agnostically,” using recognizable materials, methodologies, and mechanisms to establish an accessible language and create opportunities to exercise visual and critical perspectives. His international artistic practice realizes projects in public space that manifest as installations and interventions, often collaborative or interactive in nature. Informed by his background in creative technology, graphic design, and interaction design, Herzog’s work offers spaces to interface with art, each other, and our world, amid the Anthropocene.

MELISSA RICHARDSON | b. 2002, Austin, Texas, USA | B.F.A. fashion Star-Crossed, 2022, Silicon bronze

A paper airplane rendered in silicon bronze and embellished with silhouettes of the 12 zodiac signs, Melissa Richardson’s sculpture Star-Crossed is imbued with universal symbolism. Its skyward orientation and the variable nature of its surfaces propose a sense of unity through our hopes and aspirations, our common connection to the stars, and our ever-changing human natures.

Richardson is a multidisciplinary artist and designer whose work spans painting, sculpture, textiles, 3D printing, laser engraving, large-scale murals, furniture design, graphic design, and illustration. Her practice is founded in the pursuit of making without limits and the belief that anything is possible.

WENDY WHITE | b. 1971, Deep Water, Connecticut, USA | B.F.A., fibers, 1993 Raincloud (Neon Signs on Overcast Days), 2022, Aluminum, steel, and automotive paint

The rain cloud has been a recurring symbol in Wendy White’s work since 2016. White employs this form to express the transience of a fleeting moment, while making the intangible physical. Like the ubiquitous symbols we encounter daily on products, signs, and digital graphics, White’s cloud is a simplified, bold shape that is understood universally. In this work, White uses the precise shade “Curious Yellow,” produced in 1971 by the Chrysler Plymouth car company, as a nod to the themes of Americana, car culture, and nostalgia that permeate the artist’s larger oeuvre. Yet White’s cloud also engages pressing environmental concerns, serving, as the artist states, as “a reminder of weather’s effect on human survival and nourishment as well as our ever-fragile connection to and dependence on the natural world.”

White is a New York-based painter and mixed-media artist whose work juxtaposes unexpected shadow play with bright, neon colors and surprising materials. White is best known for large-scale works that challenge pictorial space by way of sculptural additions and interventions. Defying the limitations of the traditional canvas, her work encompasses painting, sculpture, and installation. White’s exhibitions include Low Pressure at Museum Goch, Germany; Expeditions at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Vermont; The Armory Show in New York; Rainbow Bridge at Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo; and The Art Show: Art of the New Millennium in Taguchi Art Collection at the Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, Japan. Her work is also featured in Phaidon’s 2011 anthology Vitamin P2: New Perspectives in Painting. 

JUSTIN ZIELKE | b. 1989, Wichita, Kansas, USA | M.F.A., animation, 2017 Nuance in Repetition, 2022, Bronze

Nuance in Repetition continues Justin Zielke’s exploration of both realistic and abstract visual interpretations of the body to examine subjects of human experience. Using both traditional and digital approaches, this bronze work exemplifies the artist’s fascination with the process of creation and its relation to individual identity. Through the obvious gestural marks rendered in grand scale, this larger- than-life-sized bust straddles familiarity and uncertainty.

Zielke is a San Francisco-based sculptor and installation artist noted for his work in wood, clay, and digital mediums. Zielke has participated in the Jentel Artist Residency and the Vermont Studio Center residency program and is the recipient of grants from the Koch Cultural Trust and the Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission in partnership with the Vernon Filley Museum of Art. In 2020, he received the Beautiful Bizarre Magazine People’s Choice Award for his work The Spinning Wheel.