Growing up in New Orleans with its rich and distinctive history and cultural atmosphere, and being raised by arts-centric, arts-valuing parents, Aaron Hussey was magnetically drawn to the arts and most specifically – public art, for as long as he can remember. “I have to be making. I have to be creating something. I have to make art, it’s the only thing I want to do,” he confesses. His recent creation, Magnolia Bluff, allows for Hussey’s return to the Mathews-Sanders Sculpture Garden and sees the Baton Rouge-based artist revisit a consistent theme throughout his entire artistic catalogue. “This was a key piece for me; it was a step-off to this whole series that marries this connection between the built environment with the natural environment,” he explains. “It’s meant to continue exploring the basic infiltration of this – the Earth, with our structural presences, as humans. What are our interactions destructing in nature?” Fabricated of corten steel, stainless steel and painted steel, this 2011 sculpture is constructed to have tree-like qualities and also possess windows near the bottom half of the physical structure. “Yeah, that’s another common idea in my pieces, for sure – this idea of a portal, or doorway. I think the hope there, is that someone will look at it with a different perspective. What does it mean to see something from the other side or what does it require to cross the threshold to other side? What can be gained from that? What awaits us there?”
Magnolia Bluff by Aaron Hussey
