Jon Barlow Hudson Artist Statement

JON BARLOW HUDSON

I have been creating large-scale sculpture projects for public environments since 1976, with such works in 27 different countries around the world. I have 23 such projects throughout China alone. This has provided me with a uniquely broad experience of art & sculpture in many different cultural & architectural contexts. My first % for art project was with Miami/Dade in 1979, for the Homestead Public Library : the sculpture POLARIS.

A number of my sculpture projects have been designed as memorials or to commemorate or symbolize something, such as FIREWALL, a Firefighter/EMS memorial and SHIVA : SHIWANA, created for the HQ of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory—VLA west of Socorro, NM in 1980.

I work on any scale, in a wide range of materials, in various motifs & types of installation. While many of my projects have been in various kinds of metal such as stainless steel, I especially like working with stone. Many of my large-scale sculpture projects have involved working with various types of clients in both early & later stages of a project, sometimes developing a project with them. Virtually all of them have been designed with their intended sites uppermost in mind, within budget and on schedule. Perhaps one of the more notable such is working with Expo 88 in Brisbane, Australia, for which I built the 100 ft. high stainless steel PARADIGM, which included 66 airplane lights & the 15 ft. diameter mirror polished stainless steel MORNING STAR II. One of my China projects is WIND DRAGON, created for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

My sculpture projects tend to be abstract, often geometric in one way or another, such as DOUBLE HELIX, the DNA structure inspired stainless steel sculpture for the Diggs Life Science Bldg. at Wright State Univ.: an OAC % art project. The stone sculptures tend to be a balance of natural aspects with human interventions. My sculpture may be seen as iconic for the most part, or symbolic, very often referencing a center, whether actual or spatial. It often works with balance; space in contrast with form; implied space; ambiguity if incorporating mirror surfaces; light & darkness; a continuum, implied or actual; movement & flow such as a vortex; interior & exterior; natural/organic with man-made. I always thoroughly research a given project & create a sculpture or project that speaks to the pertinent characteristics of the situation, whether cultural, environmental or architectural.