Familiar Face

Artist JD Koth creates enigmatic sculpture for Atlanta BeltLine

By Isadora Pennington

A familiar work of art has become a permanent installation under the Highland Avenue bridge along the Atlanta BeltLine’s Eastside Trail. You may remember iterations of this image in a variety of places throughout the city, including a rock face at Piedmont Park and tucked away in a phone booth in East Atlanta. The sculpture – a face with multiple ascending eyes, mouths, and a temple between its eyes – is the creation of local sculptor JD Koth.

Koth has been an artist for as long as he can remember, though in his early years he was mostly into doodling. Later on, as a teenager, he took up photography, specifically with an interest in abandoned places. This artistic expression was a common theme in his life, but he didn’t take art seriously until he began attending Georgia State University, where he got a BFA in Sculpture.

While still a student, Koth began experimenting with making sculptures out of twigs and sticks behind the Edgewood Sculpture Building. He proposed a concept for the 2011 Art on the BeltLine and was selected to display his “Twisting Passage” sculptures. These creations, both whimsical and otherworldly, caught the eye of a local Disney production, “The Odd Life of Timothy Green,” for which he was commissioned to create sculptures.

In all, Koth has participated in six Art on the BeltLine events, and one image has emerged time and again in his work: the multi-faceted face. Initially, he wasn’t keen on