The Georgia Museum of Art’s Jane and Harry Willson Sculpture Garden has art in it once again. The exhibition Terra Verte, consisting of works by Scottish artist Patricia Leighton, is on display through the end of May 2015.
Terra Verte consists of six “growing cubes,” elevated frameworks of steel filled with living vegetation, situated throughout the three tiers of the outdoor space. Inspired by the interaction of art and site, Leighton works in tandem with a diverse creative team of ecologists, engineers, architects and landscape architects to produce large-scale commissions that relate to the history of a given site and relevant natural conditions.
“Patricia Leighton’s work is a captivating combination of architectural, geometric structures and organic, supple forms,” said Annelies Mondi, deputy director of the museum and curator of the exhibition. “The contrast of the bright stainless steel cubes and the delicate sedum plant material make Leighton’s sculptures famously bold and gentle, fixed and variable. Over the course of the year each work will transform subtly as the plants grow, bloom and change color with the seasons.”
This fusion of environment and public art is at the heart of all of Leighton’s designs.
“Not only did Leighton pay close attention to the details of the individual sculptures, but she spent considerable time studying the layout of our sculpture garden,” Mondi said. “She thoughtfully placed every work so that the visitor is invited to walk through the various levels of the courtyard and find something unique about each interior space.”
Stone Levity, a sculpture by Leighton’s husband, Del Geist, is in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex quad, in front of the Performing Arts Center.