THROUGH THE LENS

IN PLAIN SIGHT

photographs by GUS SAMARCO words by LAURA PETRIDES WALL

You know the days when you get home, but you don’t actually remember making that specific turn into your neighborhood or cars you passed along the highway? Our brains have an extraordinary ability to tune out objects that we see everyday through a process called adaptation. Unless something new comes along or changes, we can ignore—truly not see— what is literally right in front of us. On the following pages, we discover anew striking additions to familiar local surroundings: sculpture. Whether you’ve yet to find time to visit these works or, for whatever reason, mentally edited them out of your day-to-day, here’s a chance to readapt. Sculpture can transform a plain landscape and energize a space through color, material, location, and even interactivity. It helps distinguish one city from another by telling its story and showcasing its distinctive history, icons, culture and vision. It’s time we take a second look.

FIRMLY PLANTED

Sculptor Roxy Paine’s 46-foot stainless steel tree, Askew, overlooks its real-life cousins outside the West Building at N.C. Museum of Art (NCMA).

LIGHT PLAY

This page: Mike Roig’s Glimpses of the Promised Land in Chavis Park, off of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, twinkles during sunset.

Opposite page: The Sir Walter Raleigh statue in front of Raleigh Convention Center downtown is often dressed up for events around town, including the Hopscotch and World of Bluegrass music festivals each fall. Here, the 11-foot-tall bronze statue dons his original garb at the very end of sunset.

Dylan Bouterse (RISE)

TWISTY TURNY

Opposite page: Raleigh artist Matt McConnell’s aluminum sculpture Rise, with a catalyzed- urethane finish, forms a cylindrical gateway at the SkyHouse building downtown.

Above: A Vollis Simpson whirligig overlooks Martin Street with a twirl.

LARGER THAN LIFE

Above: Wind Sculpture II by Yinka Shonibare captures the volume of wind three-dimensionally. The kite-esque sculpture, made of glass-reinforced polyester fitted to a steel structure, can be found along the walking trails at the Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park.

Opposite page: Stainless steel and mesh Awilda & Irma represent mother and daughter figures. The work by Jaume Plensa is on long-term loan at NCMA.

SERIOUS MATTER

Above: The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Garden, located at the corner of Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard and Rock Quarry Road, includes a 6-foot-tall bronze statue of Dr. King encircled by the King Memorial Wall. The wall is made from 2,500 named bricks noting individuals, churches, businesses, and organizations that supported the space. A table-like granite water monument (pictured) honors pioneers of the Civil Rights Movement.

At right: Wolf Ears, two concrete concave structures at The Brickyard at N.C. State, invite visitors to sit inside. If you lie back in the concrete “ear” as someone else lies in the opposite one, you can whisper to one another from across the plaza. (You can watch a video explaining the physics of this sculpture on the N.C. State YouTube channel.)