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Sculpture for the Urban Landscape: Teresa Lind, Nathan Hatch, & Bruce Niemi
June 17 - September 20, 2015
Teresa Lind: Chilton, WI
The cast iron pieces of Teresa Lind are sometimes combined with found or fabricated parts to create finished sculptures that challenge perceptions of femininity. Her female forms cast in iron and combined with fabricated steel challenge us to rethink some of our cultural stereotypes about women, strength and durability. Lind states “In trying to convey a message that is honest, provocative, sometimes fun, but ultimately relevant, I find the figure a versatile point of departure. I see the body in fashion, performance, and daily life as a canvas to present a facet of a person’s identity. I look at the personality of the wearer, the discomfort, awkwardness, and impracticality of some high fashion … and the forms of the costumes themselves.”
Lind combines a cast iron female torso with an elaborate, expansive princess-like costume fabricated with metal or concrete materials. Lind intentionally contrasts elaborate, feminine costuming with hard-edge materials.
Teresa Lind graduated with a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in 2000. After studying at the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy in 2002, she attended the University of Wisconsin-
The Generocity of Creativity
Teresa Lind
Milwaukee, graduating in 2005 with an MFA in Sculpture. Currently Lind teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater as a lecturer in Sculpture and also runs a small, custom, metal-casting endeavor in Chilton,WI where she continues to make her own sculptural works. Lind often attends national and international conferences and competes in juried, group exhibitions while pursuing varied solo opportunities.
Nathan Hatch: Baileys Harbor, WINathan Hatch indicates that his work derives from memory, passage of time, and the mystery that can hide in the everyday. “Reverence mixed with speculation and imagination [are] what I draw from when creating my work” remarks Hatch. He feels that each sculpture is purposely ambiguous in order to strengthen the viewer’s attraction to what is not easily defined. In his cast or fabricated sculpture, Hatch reflects our biomechanical age by combining unlikely themes as navigational devices and animal locomotion, or organic forms with mechanical devices. References that combine mechanical and biological or contemporary and ancient themes challenge viewers to make unique interpretations.
Nathan Hatch grew up in Door County, Wisconsin as the son of two artists. He received a BFA degree from UW-Milwaukee in 2005 and completed the Masters of Fine Art program at the University of Kentucky in 2011. Currently he maintains SideHatch Sculpture Studio in Baileys Harbor, WI. Hatch has produced numerous public and private sculptures at this metal fabrication studio including a current commission for West Bend Friends of Sculpture which will be installed in the City of West Bend later in 2015.
Wishbone
Nathan Hatch
Hatch has been invited to exhibit in numerous exhibitions including those at the Peninsula School of Art, Fish Creek, Wisconsin, the Sculpture Center, Cleveland Ohio, the Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio, and at the Sculpture Space in Utica, New York where he was a National Endowment for the Arts award recipient. His work can be seen in public at the Stevens Point Sculpture Park, Eastern Illinois University at Charleston, Illinois, the Josephine Sculpture Park in Frankfort, Kentucky and the Peninsula School of Art in Fish Creek, Wisconsin.
Power of Three
Bruce Niemi
Bruce Niemi: Kenosha, WI
A love of sculpture began when Bruce Niemi welded his first piece of metal at the age of 12. Niemi’s first instructor was his father, Frank J. Niemi, an ornamental iron artist and self-taught sculptor. Niemi went on to receive his BFA in Sculpture at Northern Illinois University in 1981. Bruce’s first notable commission was the 25’ high Eternal Flame War Memorial in 1993 to honor veterans of all wars and conflicts, located in Worth, Illinois. In 2009, Niemi’s 17’ tall stainless-steel sculpture, Remembered, was installed at NIU in DeKalb, Illinois as a memorial at the site of a 2008 campus tragedy. A quintet of flame-like shapes, as if rising to the heavens, is a remembrance of five students whose lives were lost.
Niemi has been a full-time sculptor for 28 years and he continues to create unique pieces that are meant to be positive and uplifting. The sculptor feels that his inspiration for creating sculpture is a gift from God. He feels blessed to have created 52 public sculptures as well as sculptures for annual exhibitions at various locations. He also has numerous pieces in corporate and private and private collections throughout the U.S. and Europe.
The power and beauty of nature and the energy and balance of dance are driving forces behind Niemi’s art. The sculptor wants to stimulate the mind of the viewer as well as to create a sculpture that complements and harmonizes with the environment that it shares. Stainless steel and silicon bronze are his primary materials of choice. He does all his own fabrication and loves the process from start to finish. His one-of-a-kind work, Standing the Test of Time, serves as a sundial while the beaming obelisk also lifts viewers’ thoughts skyward. The fluidity of such a hard surface is Niemi’s signature in his creations. Craftsmanship, structural strength, and public safety are also important elements of Niemi’s finished work.