This winter at Grounds For Sculpture, you can experience the union of art and nature by heading indoors.
Petah Coyne’s Untitled #1383 (Sisters – Two Trees) is currently on view in the sculpture garden’s Museum Building through March 2, 2025. The large-scale sculpture is on loan from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), which is sharing this work from its permanent collection through Art Bridges Foundation’s Partner Loan Network.
Created using unconventional materials such as apple trees and taxidermized peacocks, Untitled #1383 (Sisters – Two Trees) compares and contrasts with the garden landscape of GFS. The view from inside the gallery looks out upon the gardens, inviting opportunities for deeper discussions on nature, climate, temporality, and whimsy. These core themes underscore the inherent interplay between sculpture and landscape, a cornerstone of GFS founder Seward Johnson’s vision for the park.
“We are delighted to have the opportunity to exhibit Untitled #1383 (Sisters – Two Trees) at Grounds For Sculpture,” said Kathleen Greene, chief audience officer at Grounds For Sculpture. “This work’s use of unconventional, yet natural, materials enable us to expand the experience of contemporary sculpture at GFS while considering key themes surrounding nature, preservation, and fantasy. We are very grateful to both PAFA and Art Bridges for their support in presenting this installation to our community, which will help us deepen our engagement with key stakeholders and forge a relationship with our peer institution, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.”
In Untitled #1383 (Sisters – Two Trees), flora and fauna are brought together in a reverential yet imaginative way. The installation’s central element is made from two real trees that were cut and reformed to create one large branching shape that is 15 feet high and 25 feet wide.
Upon the branches, Coyne places more than a dozen taxidermized peacocks. Surrounding the tree are floral elements, which rest on the branches and on the floor around its base. Peacocks are a reoccurring theme throughout literature and folklore, where they are often used to represent many different ideas and concepts. Coyne incorporates these birds often in her work, and she notes their association in Irish folklore with escorting the dead to the afterlife.
“We are excited to partner with Grounds For Sculpture to bring Petah Coyne’s remarkable work, Untitled #1383 (Sisters – Two Trees), to the sculpture park,” says Art Bridges CEO Anne Kraybill. “This collaboration highlights our ongoing mission to share significant works of American art with diverse audiences, fostering reflection and engagement.”
Untitled #1383 (Sisters – Two Trees) was recently presented at a joint exhibition Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America between PAFA and the African American Museum in Philadelphia. As one of the joint exhibition’s 20 participating contemporary artists, Coyne was asked to consider the question, “Is the sun rising or setting on the experiment of American democracy?” This prompt was inspired by the words of Benjamin Franklin and the lyrics from James Weldon Johnson’s Black National Anthem, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.”
Petah Coyne is a contemporary American artist who works in varied and nontraditional materials including her own specially formulated wax, taxidermy, human hair, scrap metal, silk flowers, and religious statuary. Art history, family memories, and literature often inspire her work, drawing from a large pool of different sources, from Margaret Atwood’s “Alias Grace” to Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations.” Her arrangement of material and juxtaposition of mediums to create large-scale installations, for which she is best known, often evoke themes of life and death, triumph and loss, chaos and stillness, and beauty and darkness.
Grounds For Sculpture, 80 Sculptors Way, Hamilton. Open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Mondays; closed Tuesdays. Timed entry ticket required. $18 to $25. 609-586-0616 or www.groundsforsculpture.org.
Petah Coyne’s Untitled #1383 (Sisters – Two Trees) is currently on view in Grounds For Sculpture’s Museum Building through March 2, 2025.,
