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A pair of artists, the Department of Arts and Culture, and the general public came together downtown on Wednesday to unveil the city’s newest art installations.
About fifty people stood at the corner of West Commerce and Santa Rosa streets, where two artists unveiled their most recent creations.
Diana Kersey was one of the two artists, and the art she creates is called architectural ceramics. As to what her two installations are, there was a specific process she had to follow to arrive at her designs. That process with the city helps give artists direction from people in the nearby community.
The installations are part of the city’s public art program for La Zona Cultural near San Pedro Creek.
“The stakeholders in the area, they decided they wanted something that had nature in it and that talked about the San Pedro Creek, and so the city gave me a theme of creatures in the creek,” Kersey said.
Her colorful depictions of snakes, turtles, birds and lizards in her two pieces have a style that’s interpretive instead of photorealistic.
The second artist uses Rhys as her professional name, and when asked about her muse, she said her inspiration was all around her.
“My inspiration was downtown. It was downtown, and my work is often inspired and informed by architecture,” Rhys said.
Her work is a series of colorful plexiglass pieces attached to long steel bars. With the movement of the sun, her art changes color from day to day and hour to hour.
“I really wanted something that was an extension of the city, as opposed to an interruption of it,” she said. “I wanted it to flow with its surrounding environment. I was thinking of the Children's Hospital and the colors there.”
And in fact, some of the colors at the Children’s Hospital were reflected in her piece. She said her ambitions for how the work will affect San Antonians were simple.
“Slowing down a bit and being a little more present in their environment,” she said.
Diana Kersey said she feels fortunate to be creating art for San Antonio.
“I'm really lucky to be in this time and place in San Antonio,” she said. “Our public art program is 30 years old. It started out as a part of streets and maintenance, and then it’s moved into its own, and so I'm really thrilled.”
The three pieces can be seen while driving down Commerce and Santa Rosa streets, though the artists hope visitors will slow down and experience them up close.
