Monumental sculptures by world-renowned artist to rise above living museum’s diverse plant collections
Houston Botanic Garden presents Steve Tobin’s Intertwined: Exploring Nature’s Networks, beginning Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023, and running through Aug. 13, 2023. The exhibition features monumental sculptures by the American artist, who is world-renowned for his works in glass, bronze, ceramic and steel, including “Trinity Root,” a memorial cast from a tree that protected a New York City cathedral on 9/11. In Houston, Tobin’s works will spiral in elegant forms as much as 30 feet above the natural beauty of the Houston Botanic Garden, the Bayou City’s living museum for plants.
Caption: Steve Tobin’s Intertwined: Exploring Nature’s Networks opens Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023, at Houston Botanic Garden. Photo credit: Houston Botanic Garden
The exhibition features pieces from several series – including modernist “Steelroots,” unearthed “Bronze Roots,” stainless steel “Clouds,” and bronze and steel “Nests” with magical eggs – all of which dramatically capture the unseen power of the natural world while celebrating the importance of the systems that give life to the Garden’s tropical, sub-tropical, and arid collections.
Specific sculptures that are sure to delight include “Eagle Nest,” “Dancing Roots,” “Twistys,” and “Romeo and Juliet.” The latter is a pair of large sculptures made by casting tree roots in bronze. Tobin uses a bright-red patina to finish the two sculptures, named after the star-crossed lovers in William Shakespeare’s famous tragedy, which are installed together so that they are almost touching limbs.
Visitors are encouraged to engage with the sculptures while reflecting on their own powerful roots of heritage, family, and community.
“In the Garden, Steve Tobin’s works will invite viewers to engage with elegant, nature-inspired forms, to explore how we are all intertwined with the unseen, life-sustaining power of nature,” says Claudia Gee Vassar, President & General Counsel of the Houston Botanic Garden. “The Garden will change with the seasons throughout the exhibition, providing different backdrops to explore the creativity of nature, and Tobin’s artistry.”
“I am excited to bring my works to the Houston Botanic Garden,” says Tobin. “They are distillations that recontextualize nature in modernist forms, allowing us to see nature as an ideal. My works are meant to enhance the surroundings and reposition the viewer.”
“Magic is my color of choice. Roots above ground, clouds at your feet with people mirrored in them, nests with reflective eggs that bring you into the nest, twistys as forever sprouts lifting the viewers up into the clouds – these seem impossible, yet real,” Tobin continues.
Steve Tobin’s Intertwined is included in the ticket price for admission to the Garden. Tickets are $12.50 for adults and $8 for children and students Monday – Thursday; the price for Friday – Sunday is $15 for adults and $10 for children and students.
Go to www.hbg.org to buy tickets in advance. Houston Botanic Garden is located at One Botanic Lane off of Park Place Boulevard. Steve Tobin’s Intertwined is open during regular Garden hours.