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Arts & Entertainment

Summit Public Art Welcomes Luke Achterberg Sculptures

Summit Public Art Welcomes Luke Achterberg’s Sculptures to the Green

 

Summit Public Art has added two new artworks to its collection of sculptures, these by sculptor Luke William Achterberg. Entitled Kill or Bee Killed and Torrent, the large curvilinear painted steel sculptures are located on the northwest quadrant of Summit’s Village Green, near Broad and Maple Streets.

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Luke Achterberg is the son and grandson of welders and automotive painters, and the influence of both of these trades comes through strongly in these recent works. As he explains, “The current body of work explores my realizations of relationships between certain aspects of Americana and Fine Art.  Particularly I am interested in the American sub- cultures of hot rodding, contemporary graffiti writing, and the experience of urban civilization/environment; which I would call street art.  The automotive painted steel fabrications seek to question, and perhaps even blur, the line between accepted forms of fine art and street art. Therefore balance plays a continual role throughout a style that I call ‘SuperSleek.’’’

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Luke William Achterberg grew up in the Fox River Valley region of Wisconsin. His undergraduate study focused on fine art, psychology, and philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Fueling his metal knowledge, Luke then decided to obtain a Welding Technical Diploma from Western Technical College in La Crosse. This led him to become a certified welder at a custom job shop for a year before attending graduate school at the University of Kentucky and completing his Master of Fine Art. He has been teaching Sculpture and Ceramics part-time at Morehead State University, and he recently completed a two-month residency at Art-St-Urban in Switzerland. He maintains his own active studio in Lexington, Kentucky, where he recently completed a body of work for a solo exhibition with Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in New York City. Luke Achterberg exhibits work both outdoor and indoor throughout the United States and Switzerland.

 

Today there are approximately 18 sculptures displayed on the Village Green and at other sites around the city, including a new kinetic piece at City Hall. Over the past ten years, more than 35 works of art have rotated through Summit, where they have been installed at various sites for 6 months or more. There are also three permanent installations, the art glass windows in the bus shelters along Broad Street. A new permanent “gateway” sculpture will be installed soon in East Summit on Broad Street.

Summit Public Art, established in 2002, is an all-volunteer committee and is funded solely through private donations and grants; no funding is provided by the City of Summit. Contributions ensure that new and powerful public art continues to bring vibrancy to the Summit community. For more information, visit http://arts.cityofsummit.org or go to www.cityofsummit.org and click on Arts/Events.

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