Fitzhugh on large-scale installations

Fitzhugh Karol's large-scale sculpture installations in wood and metal span galleries and public parks. We catch up with the sculptor on his process, some recent projects, and how parks are the great equalizers of cities.

Fitzhugh's large steel sculptures originate in small cardboard or cardstock mockups. His sculptures activate the space they inhabit whether they are installed in a natural landscape or positioned on a shelf at home.

My process is fairly simple at its core. Typically I have a flash of an idea, a combination of shapes, a landscape or just a feeling that I want to realize and a material choice will illuminate itself. Sometimes my work is subtractive - I have a large timber and I remove material until satisfied.

Fitzhugh Karol

Working in metal, wood and ceramic, Fitzhugh’s large-scale sculptures mix angular and organic geometries inspired by real and fabricated archaeological records, music, childhood and minimalism.

Public art, especially in parks is really the ideal place for the sculptures I want to create. I love a high level of interaction with a work. Parks are the great equalizers of our cities - you have all walks of life in a park on a given day, a thousand different backgrounds and all with unique imaginations.

Fitzhugh Karol

My process is about keeping up with an internal energy and reflecting that energy in sculptural variations. My Godfather, a sculptor who I looked up to greatly, once said to me casually, 'You've got to follow the juice' and in many ways that's what my creative process is - passionate pursuit of a constant yet ever-evolving juice. It's a serious pursuit but it's about play and it's about joy.

Fitzhugh Karol

Public art is vital to the vibrancy of any city landscape and art in our parks takes it a step further, allowing people to be around art when their guard is down, when they're free.

Fitzhugh Karol