Cape Outdoor Sculpture Event – Cape Girardeau

The Public Art Committee of the City of Cape Girardeau will launch the city’s fourth public art outdoor exhibition on Thursday, April 6. You’re invited to a special reception and kick-off event at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 6 on the Vasterling Suites Courtyard to celebrate the exhibit opening. The reception will be open to the public after which participants are encouraged to walk Broadway and view the pieces. The reception will include free beer tasting, generously hosted by Minglewood Brewery. Wine will also be served.

 

The Public Art Committee of the City of Cape Girardeau will launch the city’s fourth public art outdoor exhibition on Thursday, April 6. The show consists of seven substantial pieces are placed along the Broadway Corridor in Cape Girardeau for one year, culminating in early April 2018.

Jennifer Torres juried the 2017 Cape Girardeau Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit, with input from the Public Art Committee; a group that consists of representatives from the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri, Old Town Cape, City of Cape Girardeau, and Chris Wubbena, professor of Sculpture at Southeast Missouri State University.

 Jennifer Torres was born in Queens, NY and spent her childhood in Teaneck, NJ. She did her first four years of studio training as a teenager at the Arts Students League in New York City and received her BFA at the Cooper Union, also in NYC. After graduating from cooper she trained as a fine cabinetmaker in New England, and then received her MFA in Sculpture at the University of Georgia in Athens.

Ms. Torres has lived in Hattiesburg, MS for 17 years where she has her studio and teaches sculpture at The University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, MS. She has had many exhibitions of her sculptures and installations around the country and has won a number of awards and commissions.

 

Juror Statement: I was honored and excited to act as juror for this year’s outdoor exhibition. The large number of quality works and varied materials made the decisions very challenging. Added on was the inherent difficulty related to having no knowledge of the landscape in which they would be placed. In some ways this made things a bit more straightforward as my role in judging the works became one of looking solely at the quality of the formal compositions and fabrication, and the role the viewer would have in correlation to the work. A few works that really standout are James Johnson’s, The Seeker, as it strives to draw the viewer into its architectural landscape with its surrealism-like bending of forms. Another would be Jillian Springer’s, Grandiloquence, with its playful disposition and interactive notion, allowing the viewer to get on and go along for the ride. And finally, Andy Arvanetes, Bird House, is intriguing for its nod to the well-known homogeneous birdhouse, but yet throws in an impression of an industrialized environment that seems becoming of our modern times.

“As a sculptor I build what I imagine, and there’s a lot going on in there, so I’ll be busy for a while.”

The seven artists selected for the exhibition are:

 

·      Andrew Arvantes- “Bird House” – Dekalb, IL

·      Carl Billingsley – “Eyes of Dawn” – Ayden, NC

·      Jeff Boshart- “T.H.E.B. Caution” – Charleston, IL

·      Richard Herzog – “Urban Forest” – Athena, GA

·      James K. Johnson – “The Seeker” – Charleston, IL

·      Tommy Riefe- “Portal” – St. Louis, MO

·      Jillian Springer- “Grandiloquence” -Murphysboro, IL

 

By hosting the Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit on Broadway, the Committee hopes to achieve two primary goals: increase the number of arts-related activities within the region and provide an additional revitalization strategy for Old Town Cape.

Funding for the exhibit was provided by: City of Cape Girardeau Parks and Recreation Department, the National Endowment for the Arts and Old Town Cape.

Media inquiries about the Public Art Committee or Cape Girardeau Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition on Broadway should be directed to the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri at 573-334-9233 or artscouncil@capearts.org.

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