Up-Next

Artist: Oliver Lewis

Oliver Lewis is a visual artist educated in mathematics, robotics, and chemical engineering. His diverse skillset and experience enable him to create visually striking installations that engage the public in the principles of science and mathematics. He has worked with several organizations, including the McColl Center for Visual Art, Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Charlotte Center City Partners, Blumenthal Performing Arts, the City of Raleigh, and the Knight Foundation.

Installation location: Atherton Plaza near Trolley Barn (2102 S. Blvd)

Up-Next is an interactive sculpture that resembles vintage TV sets from the 1980’s. This captivating installation boasts ten massive kaleidoscopes that generate mesmerizing light patterns. Visitors can easily interact with Up-Next. 

Fractal Energy

Artist: Anna G. Dean

Anna G. Dean is an interdisciplinary artist, working in sculpture, installation, video, and mixed media. She completed her MFA at Winthrop University, where she currently teaches and coordinates the CreatorSpace technology lab. Dean’s work has been exhibited at the Mint Museum, the McColl Center, the Brooklyn Collective, Redux Gallery, and at Miami Art Week. She was recently awarded the 2024 Individual Artist Fellowship through the South Carolina Arts Commission. 

Installation location: The Wedge Patio near Flower Child (1537 Camden Rd.)

This sculpture is based on the famous visual representation of a fractal pattern. Fractal Energy takes inspiration from two sources: The Infinity Room (made popular by Japanese contemporary artist, Yayoi Kusama), and the Sierpinski Triangle. It is created using equilateral triangles that can be mathematically reduced so that it can be infinitely scalable.  

In this sculpture, light is the primary medium because light will form and illuminate all of the axes in the triangles. These will then illuminate the mirrors, and the light will appear to go on and on to infinity, as the scale shifts in each reflection.  

This sculpture is very interactive because not only does the Sierpinski triangle shift with the viewer’s perspective, to create varying complexity as people walk around the structure, but their reflection will also become a part of the work, and they themselves will appear to go on and on for infinity. 

Oyster Corner

Artist: Hnin Nie

HNin Nie is a multidisciplinary artist based in Charlotte. Her art draws inspiration from illustration, and blends animation and text to aid in her visual storytelling. In her creative exploration, Nie embraces the magical and the mundane by anthropomorphizing her subjects. Her art invites you to rediscover the enchantment in everyday life and to nurture empathy for both the animate and the inanimate.

Installation location: Kingston Connection near the Rail Trail Chalkboard (108 E. Kingston Ave.)

Created in collaboration with Callender Baker, Oyster Corner is inspired by the beauty of nature, particularly the elegance of oyster mushrooms. The vision is to bring a touch of nature to the heart of the city through a monochromatic design featuring a pink tree. The oyster mushrooms will come to life through a play of lights, transitioning from soft pink to warm yellow and a radiant white glow. 

The main tree of Oyster Corner is standing 8 feet tall, adorned with these dazzling mushrooms that cast their light. Adjacent to the tree is a mini pink tree stump that serves as the interactive heart of the installation. Here, visitors can pause for public seating, or post with a perfect backdrop for photos. The stump, measuring at least 20 inches in both width and height, provides ample seating space for all. 

Leave the Light On

Artist: J. Stacy Utley

J. Stacy Utley is a critically acclaimed artist whose work is grounded in the fundamental belief that public art should incite dialogue, evoke an emotion, and tell a narrative. The narrative should reflect its cultural landscape and be curated with thoughtful design. Utley works in 2D and 3D mediums and addresses complex narratives found within the African American diaspora. Born in Suffolk, England and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, Utley now resides in Charlotte, North Carolina where he is a practicing artist, lecturer, and educator. 

Installation Location: The Pavilion (next to Futo Buta at 222 E Bland St.)

Inspired by his recent series of paintings, In Transition, and in collaboration with artists Dani Delrio and Karl Hoffman, Utley's installation titled Leave the Light On addresses the impact of gentrification in communities and urban spaces, and the resulting effects on various demographics. Using a simple shape that represents a house, the work represents the homes and lives that have been affected by redevelopment.  The LED lights, while perceived as colorful, are coded. In the 1950s and 60s, redlining maps used the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue as indicator markings to distinguish desired areas from those in decline due to a lack of resources. 

Cheeks Laboratory

Artist: Cheeks McGee the collector of techniques

Cheeks is a multifaceted artist who combines digital with physical art. From computer renders and 3D printing to painting and installation art, Cheeks enjoys the process of creation. 

Installation Location: The Pavillion (next to Futo Buta at 222 E Bland St.)

About Cheeks Laboratory:

Cheeks’ Laboratory presents an elaborate interactive machine for you, the curious scientist, to witness your own experimental reaction. Press the red or green button to see what happens. Let your imagination be free and explore the world of technology and creation. 

Gold Rush

Artist: Studio Dickey (Sage Duffey, Sierra Grant, Sarika Merchant, Elijah Rutkowski, Rachel Dickey)

Studio Dickey is a public art and urban design practice founded by Rachel Dickey, an Associate Professor of Architecture at UNC Charlotte, and is comprised of Sage Duffey, Sierra Grant, Sarika Merchant, and Elijah Rutkowski. The practice uniquely consists of students and professionals collaboratively working on the design and production of creative works. 

Installation Location: Flower Child (1537 Camden Rd.)

About Gold Rush:

The Gold Rush installation draws upon Charlotte’s history, from mining for gold (1799), to the minting of gold coins (1836), and now as a banking hot spot. The installation is reminiscent of a metallic sparkle by gold mirrored panels that generate shimmering reflections and dancing light patterns. The overall form of the installation encourages interaction and spaces for people to photograph during their visit.

The Lighted Cube

Artist: Sir Will

Sir Will is a Digital Content Creator specializing in video, mixed media, and photography. Will is highly influenced by the style and culture developed uniquely in the South. Expanding upon the work created through photography, he works to transform portraits into new captivating and interactive work.

Installation Location: Design Center Plaza near Jeni's Ice Cream (1920 Camden Rd.)

About Lighted Cube:

The Lighted Cube is meant to break the normal concept of passively looking at art by allowing the viewers to become part of the artwork themselves. Drawing upon his inspiration from Southern imagery and artwork, he brings his lighted story of Southern Culture to you. This cube is meant to be the ultimate photo moment. 

Kaleidoscopic

Artist: Studio Cultivate (Kathryn Godwin)

Studio Cultivate is a design and fabrication company that specializes in creating unique and elevated immersive experiences, led by a team of women who strive to create masterfully crafted installations of magic and whimsy in the community. 

Installation Location: The Wedge Patio near Flower Child (1537 Camden Rd.)

About Kaleidoscope:

Kaleidoscopic plays off the refraction of light and invites the public to experience a depth of color layered through tinted glass window panes. New life will be given to old windows pulled from demolished or renovated homes with freshly painted swaths of color applied to the glass with window film. Built upon the idea of light as a bright spectrum of color, Kaleidoscopic creates vivid, magical experiences.

Moment

Artist: G. Scott Queen

G. Scott Queen is a research and conceptual artist. He takes a technologist approach to art-making, engaging with new media for expressive purposes. In this age of computerization Queen believes that machine-human collaboration can unlock the full potential of our societies and future generations. 

Installation Location: Kingston Connection near the Rail Trail Chalkboard (108 E. Kingston Ave.)

About Moment:

Moment is a new media public sculpture that builds on the influences of a historical internet diagram, coupling AI with iterative design inputs that seek to provide a moment of clarity and reflection to viewers in a vibrant urban setting. 

High Beams

Artist: Matthew Steele

Matthew Steele is influenced by infrastructure and how technologies of the self are reflected in the physical technologies we produce. Often representing mass-produced forms, he draws parallels between humanity and the manufactured world. Steele has work in private and public collections nationally and internationally. 

Installation Location: Atherton Plaza near Trolley Barn (2102 S. Blvd)

About High Beams:

Through intervention, an ordinary sedan is transformed into something else with some surreal form of persona. The bulbs protruding through the car’s exterior illuminate when it senses the viewer, demonstrating an awareness – alluding to animation or social intelligence. High Beams was created with support of Alex Cabral and Keith Jung. 

Ze Portal

Artist: ARKO x MOON

ARKO x MOON is an ongoing collaboration between Arko CLT and Luvly Moon. They have worked on several public art pieces together. They are both muralist and street artists based in Charlotte with a passion for personification and bright colors in their art and a desire to spread good vibes.

Installation Location: 1100 South

About Ze Portal:

"Ze Portal" is envisioned as an escape room located in the hustle and bustle of the urban environment. The viewer can walk through "Ze Portal" and feel removed from the chaos, allowing for a feeling of balance and renewal.

Sweet Dreams

Artist: Oliver Lewis

Oliver, a technology and science-based artist with a background in chemical engineeringv moved to Charlotte in the early 2000's. Oliver intertwines his background in engineering to combine robotics with art. He believes art works wonders in communicating science and technology to the public.

Installation Location: The RailYard

About Sweet Dreams:

"Sweet Dreams" recalls the comfort and protection of a nightlight as a child. The installation immerses the viewer in a slumberland crafted out of shadow and light. Viewers can bask in the glow of three oversized nightlights as they illuminate the area.

Garden of Light - A Wish for the Future

Artist: Meredith Dallas

Meredith is a sculptor from Rock Hill, SC with a decade of experience in welding and sculpture. Meredith holds a BFA from Winthrop and a MFA from the University of Illinois. She is currently the lead welder and production designer at ASCM, Inc. in South End. Her philosophy of public art places an emphasis on how art must contribute to and mesh seamlessly within a community.

Installation Location: Dilworth Artisan Station

About Garden of Light:

"Garden of Light - A Wish for the Future" creates an immersive space in which viewers can to walk, take photos, and enjoy the beauty of nature. The sculptural installation is an abstracted garden of light, completed by large, lighted dandelions. The dandelions invite the viewer to make a wish for their future.

Movimientos Illuminados

Artist: Katrina Sanchez Standfield and Caleb Roenigk

Katrina is a Panamanian-American artist who uses fibers and mixed materials to make art that explore ideas of play, community, healing and renewal. Katrina’s study of scale, texture, color and form plays with how we relate to our environments, ourselves and each other. Caleb's installation work inspires individuals to engage with space in new ways and to understand the impact people can have on a space through their own unique self-expression. Color and form at large scale play an important role in Caleb’s work, often towering over the viewer as an act of gentle confrontation.

Installation Location: Atherton Mill Lawn

About Movimientos Illuminados:

The work is a playful archway installation influenced by the visual language of Katrina’s studio practice in fiber and Caleb’s ripstop fabric installations. “Movimientos Illuminados” is a vibrant display of large-scale noodles that loop, weave, and flow together overhead, connecting to create an archway.

EFT: Night Shift

Artist: Kiik Create

Installation Location: Atherton Mill Plaza

About Night Shift:

The work is a sculptural installation composed of six brightly painted graphic sculptures. Each work has a distinct shape in a vivid color palette with fluorescent hues that are activated at night by blacklight LEDs. The installation can be seen as a ‘human energy charging station' where each token serves as a visual icon representing a hidden latent energy awaiting activation. The works are meant to inspire inner contemplation and suggest a night shift in perception.

Seating ReArrangements

Artist: Ellie Richards

Artist Location: Penland, North Carolina

About Seating ReArrangements:

Created by sculptor and furniture designer, Ellie Richards, Seating ReArrangements is an engaging composition of ten motion-illuminated chairs on the Dilworth Artisan Station Plaza. Viewable from the Rail Trail, visitors will be invited by rotating colors of embedded LED lights within plywood chairs to this socially distanced seating arrangement. 

The pandemic has altered the way we convene, and therefore the way furniture is situated in familiar spaces. Dining and leisurely activities typically taking place with closely placed chairs around a table have moved outdoors or disbanded altogether. This project considers these new behaviors and furniture layouts in outdoor space by creating a way for visitors to safely engage in the company of others through intentional arrangements that give way to an experience of social intimacy lost during this time. 

About Ellie Richards:

As a furniture designer and sculptor, Ellie Richards is interested in the role the furniture plays in creating opportunities for a deeper connection between people and their sense of place. Ellie looks to the tradition of both woodworking and the readymade to create eclectic assemblage, installation, and objects exploring intersections of labor and leisure. She has traveled extensively to investigate the role play and improvisation have on the artistic process. Her work, both furniture, and sculpture has been included in exhibitions at the Mint Museum; Center for Craft, Creativity, and Design; SOFA Chicago; and the Society of Contemporary Craft. Most recently Richards was awarded Windgate residencies at the Center for Art in Wood, and in the wood/furniture design programs at San Diego State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Currently, she is a three-year resident artist at Penland School of Craft.

Fairy Ring

Artist: Meredith Connelly

Artist Location: Cornelius, NC

About Fairy Ring

Meredith Connelly, an installation and paper artist, created Fairy Ring, composed of approximately eighty hand-sculpted thermoplastic fungi. Fairy Ring, embedded on the grassy corner in front of Atherton Market, appears like a naturally occurring phenomenon that serves as its inspiration. Fairy rings emerge as a ring or arc of mushrooms in various climates and locations around the world and have deep ties to ancient mythology. Each mushroom varies in size and contains internal light that softly diffuses through the thermoplastic to create a soft and grounded glow. Meredith is fascinated with how viewers react to her large-scale artificially illuminated sculptures, always taking cues from the natural world. She seeks to bring light, warmth, and magic to the community by transforming the perception of space and inspiring contemplation in the beauty of nature.

About Meredith Connelly

Meredith Connelly is equally inspired by science, nature, and technology. Connelly illuminates her installations and often encases her lighting in everyday, manufactured materials to reveal their surprisingly organic qualities. To further connect and submerge viewers into her glowing environments, the artist incorporates multi-sensory and interactive elements into her sculptures. Connelly also creates complex hand-cut paper works reflective of the microscopic world and presses them in glass to parallel microscope slides. Whether creating large-scale sculptural works or hand-cutting patterns into sheets of paper, she remains intrigued by the endless possibilities of her materials.

Meredith has been selected for public projects such as the Community Supported Arts Program through the Arts and Science Council in Charlotte, North Carolina, and her current temporary public project “Lights”, is on view at the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, North Carolina through mid-February 2021. 

Light Beams

Artist: Luvly Moon

Artist Location: Charlotte, NC

About Light Beans:

Luvly Moon’s Light Beans, playfully placed on Atherton Plaza, are painted acrylic semi-circular sculptures of varying sizes, between two and four feet in diameter. Each Light Bean is outfitted with a lantern light suspended from an antenna-like extension of each Light Bean. Elevated off the Light Rail, these quirky sculptures create a clever interruption of the public space and are intended to spark joy in passersby. Light Beans represents the light from within each of us and its power to illuminate any dark night and each other.

About Luvly Moon:

Luvly Moon moved to Charlotte over fifteen years ago and describes her work as bright and bubbly with a purpose-invitation for every viewer to revisit their inner child. Luvly utilizes bold color and form to control the eye and the emotional experience. Creating for Luvly is a form of somatic therapy and by focusing on her art, she an energetic fingerprint upon each piece. Her hope is this energy of love and happiness can transfer from installation to view, and from viewer to their broader community. Luvly’s wish is to provide inner-child evocations and bright splashes of sweetness around the city to fill hearts with smiles and joy.

Lovers Lighthouse

Artists: Sharon Dowell & Christopher Holston

Artist Location: Charlotte, NC

About Lover’s Lighthouse:

Sharon Dowell and Christopher Holston, Charlotte-based painters, created an illuminated lightbox in the second-story conference room of 1616 Camden. Their original design of colorful cutout shapes comes to life printed on frosted vinyl film placed directly on the room’s exterior windows and wraps around the exterior. Illuminated from within by rotating and slow-changing LED lights, the design’s colors change and shapes dance projected from the building’s conference room-turned-lightbox installation. At times, the last year seemed to be the year of taking a deep breath. The vibrant window murals seem to bellow air, portraying a space that appears alive.

About Sharon Dowell & Christopher Holston

Sharon Dowell is a painter with a focus on works on canvas, murals, and public art. Intertwining themes course through her work include the energy of place, renewal, regeneration, and redemption. Sharon views public art as a way to give back and shape communities for the better. She received a MA in Arts Administration from Winthrop and a BFA from UNCC. She has served as an Adjunct Professor and Gallery Coordinator at UNC Charlotte and as Director for Center of the Earth Gallery. Her commissions include a large-scale mural, light rail station, and transit projects for Charlotte, Durham, Raleigh, Boulder, CO, and beyond. 

Christopher Holston is a Charlotte-based painter, sculptor and muralist, recently showing in Prism at Alchemy Gallery and is part of the ASC's Regional Artist pool. Holston is also an Art Director and Set Designer with extensive experience designing and building sets for film and tv. Christopher finds meaning in the discipline required in the creative process. Christopher explores recurring themes of rebellion, meditation, emotional architecture, universal justice, love, and loss.

Sharon and Chris’s collaborative paintings and murals layer abstracted imagery, texture, and color. This project expands upon their past works together into a new media involving light and glass.

Threads

Artist: Kit Kube

Artist Location: Charlotte, NC

About Threads:

Composed of repurposed stainless-steel spools from textile mills, harvested from a local scrap yard, Threads, is a light installation that creates ties to the design district and former industrial neighborhood of South End. In Threads, Kit Kube has reworked remnants of the area’s textile industry, creating a new object from the sum of varying pieces and parts. Inside of each sculpture, Kit has incorporated and wired different light sources to project threads of colored light through the pieces and their surroundings. As a local artist who uses light as his primary medium and an exhibition developer for arts and science museums, Kit utilizes light-based objects fabricated from remnants of the mechanistic past to bring about surprise and wonderment in viewers.

About Kit Kube:

Kit Kube is a kinetic sculptor who investigates scientific, cultural, and spiritual concepts through the creation of public and private art. Kit began his creative path as a designer and builder of hands-on exhibits and theater presentations at Discovery Place in Charlotte.  For the following twenty-two years he worked as exhibits director, designer, and master prototyper at science museums in North Carolina, Virginia, Minnesota, Switzerland, and Sweden.  He fabricated three-dimensional, interactive exhibits to communicate complex concepts while integrating technology and art. Now, as an artist, Kit produces sculpture using artifacts, movement, light, and shadow. Kit exploits the aesthetics of the material and its structure, how it is held in space, and the use of light and shadow to change its intrinsic characteristics, transforming cold, heavy steel to appear warm and weightless.  

COVID Confessionals

Artist: Rachel Dickey

Artist Location: Charlotte, NC

About Covid Confessionals:

Covid Confessionals is a timely response to Covid-19 measures for social distancing as a set of iridescent curved walls with a six-foot radius that is activated by light characteristics of color and reflection. Each of the confessionals acts as room-sized face shields that provide a barrier for the meeting. The spacing of these urban shields encourages physical distancing, while also providing a place for interaction and contemplation. The ground plane surrounding the shields is demarcated by a set of vibration-activated lights at the center of each confessional. As a passerby steps on the interactive lights, a field of light dynamically bounces off the illuminated shields and encourages distanced and interactive play. 

About Rachel Dickey:

Rachel Dickey is the principal of Studio Dickey and is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of North Carolina Charlotte College of Arts and Architecture. She holds a Master of Design Studies with a concentration in technology from Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture and Master of Architecture from Georgia Institute of Technology.  She has previously taught as the Design Innovation Fellow at Ball State University and as a Visiting Professor at Cornell University. Dickey’s research and practice strive to draw upon the influential capacity of design to impact and enhance the lives of those who encounter it.

Studio Dickey, founded and directed by Rachel Dickey, is an art and design practice located in Charlotte, North Carolina. With each project, Studio Dickey shows a commitment to innovation through the use of the most cutting-edge technologies, materials, and fabrication methods. The studio gains inspiration from concepts informed by cultural, technological, and social dimensions and believes that a public design project in its contemporary manifestation can create meaningful experiences for a large and diverse audience. 

Passage

Artist: Serge Maheu

Passage is an immersive, minimalist, contemplative, and interactive artwork that explores the emotional connections we develop with light and sound. The concept of the artwork takes root in the definition of the word passage itself: the act of moving through or past something on the way from one place to another, and also the process of transition from one state to another in a temporal dimension. The installation consists of 20 circles of light that form a tunnel that bystanders will go through, and a sound system. The passage through the tunnel activates light animations and sounds. Each configuration has its own ambiance. Passage refers to this enigmatic moment between life and death, figured here as a pleasant space as part of another temporal dimension. A personal and sensory experience that remains playful.

Run Beyond

Artist: Angelo Bonello

Run Beyond is a work that focuses on the leap that we all have to make, sooner or later: the leap to freedom. Which freedom that is, Bonello doesn't specify, that is up to the spectator to decide.

Sonic Forest

Artist: Christopher Janney

Sonic Forest is a multi-sensory, interactive installation that is part of Christopher Janney’s “Urban Musical Instruments” series. The “Sonic Forest” is composed of 16, eight-foot-tall by ten-inch diameter columns each containing audio speakers, lights, and photo-electric sensors. Touching the electronic trees triggers a series of events- from an original score of melodic tones, environmental sounds, and spoken or whispered expressions to an ever-changing color palette of LED lights. Everyone who walks through this instrument calls up their own “musical oasis.” The entire installation will sound the time of day each hour. A “ghost in the machine” will trigger the installation at random moments, and the installation will “play by itself’ for short intervals when no one has passed through it.