This amazing Tucson sculpture exhibition will bring you joy

Sculpture Tucson’s latest exhibition at its permanent sculpture garden, 3420 E. River Road, was born to make you happy.

How does it achieve such a feat? With 15 large-scale pieces from a variety of artists putting their spin on the concept of joy.

No artist in the exhibition sees joy the same way.

For Phoenix-based sculptor Eugene Strickland, joy is two human figures leaping to engage in a warm embrace, in an iron-and-brass piece dubbed “The Joy of Desire.”

Joy for Tucsonan Greg Corman is birds soaring across the desert sky, realized as “Swifts in Joyful Flight;” three winged-creatures made of steel and dressed up in red paint, hoisted high above the ground.

Shirley Wagner’s “Surge” offers a joyful figure constructed of weathered steel clicking his or her heels in a piece that addresses “contemporary issues including wellness, identity, ageism, mortality and mental health,” Wagner explains in brochure materials.

“There is a lot of trouble in the world at the moment on all fronts,” said Barbara Grygutis, public artist and Sculpture Tucson president, on why

the board chose joy as

the theme of its latest show. “It is really important as human beings

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that we experience some joy.”

This will be the third major exhibition that Sculpture Tucson has held since opening the sculpture park. The first was a collection of mixed works introduced last year in a show dubbed, “Rough Terrain.” That was followed by a solo exhibition of pieces from high-profile visual artist Rotraut Klein-Moquay.

More than 45 artists applied to be part of the current exhibition, appropriately titled “Joy.” Sculpture Tucson tapped Kim Boganey, currently the arts and culture manager at the Ontario Museum of History and Art in Ontario, California, to choose which pieces made the cut.

Grygutis said the board did not get involved with the selection process, but she was “pleasantly surprised” with the end result.

“We had only seen them as tiny images on the computer,” Grygutis said. “When we got the works out into the space, they held their own. Some of it just really pops. It is wonderful.”

The exhibition will officially kick off with a free opening reception at the sculpture park from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 17.

General admission to the park is also free. Follow Sculpture Tucson

at facebook.com/ SculptureTucson or sculpturetucson.org