May 14 – June 8, 2005
Ethel Sergeant Clark Smith Gallery
The Wayne Art Center announces that “Touching Bright Wind: The Sculpture of James Lloyd, 1967–2005,” will open on May 14 and will continue through June 8, 2005, in the Center’s Ethel Sergeant Clark Smith Gallery. This survey exhibition will showcase 37 years of sculpture by James Lloyd, a Wayne resident and longtime sculpture instructor at the Wayne Art Center.
The exhibition will open with a reception to meet the artist on Saturday, May 14, from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public, and media coverage is invited.
“Touching Bright Wind” will feature a wide range of works, many of which draw their inspiration from nature and the human form. The exhibition will include small-scale maquettes, more than 20 medium-size sculptures, 4 large outdoor sculptures and a sampling of competition proposals with scale models and digital photographic images. Mr. Lloyd’s signature resin and bronze works will be included, as well as less familiar works executed in clay, alabaster and African wonderstone.
The exhibition also will include a full-scale digital photographic representation of an altar that Mr. Lloyd was commissioned to create for the hospice chapel at Louisiana State Penitentiary, a maximum-security prison in Angola. La. The seven-foot-high, 1,400-pound altar, called “Reliquary for a Chosen Spirit,” contains steel, slate, light-transmitting acrylic, nickel plating, gold leaf and plating, halogen, ultraviolet and laser internal lighting. The focal point of the hospice chapel, the altar was designed to provide comfort and healing to the prison’s inmates as well as their families.
Mr. Lloyd earned his B.F.A. in Sculpture from the University of Pennsylvania and a certificate in Painting and Sculpture from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). In addition to the altar at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, his major commissioned works include the six-foot outdoor sculpture, “Black Bird,” in Valley Forge; the bronze fountain in the Marriott Convention Center Hotel, Philadelphia; a bronze outdoor sculpture at the Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill; an outdoor sculpture at the Merrill Lynch headquarters in Princeton, N.J.; a large outdoor sculpture for the University City Science Center at 36th and Market Streets; and numerous private commissions.
Mr. Lloyd’s work has been exhibited at PAFA, the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Fine Arts, the James A. Michener Museum, Nexus Gallery and other venues. (Nancy – Jim should review this – perhaps there are better places to cite.) The artist has won numerous awards for his work, including a Best of Show award at the Wayne Art Center’s 1999 National Juried Show, and several fellowships and awards from PAFA. He now teaches sculpture at PAFA and the Cheltenham Art Center, as well as at the Wayne Art Center.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Mr. Lloyd will offer a Gallery Talk on June 2, 2005, at 7:00 p.m. at the Wayne Art Center. In his talk, the artist will discuss the roots, development and core themes in this retrospective of his work. The lecture is free and open to the public.
