Sweet Pass Sculpture School

Sweet Pass Sculpture Park announces the 2nd iteration of its education and exhibition program, Sweet Pass Sculpture School (SPSS). The program consists of a one-week intensive in Dallas, TX, a remote mentorship for research and project development, and a concluding exhibition at Sweet Pass Sculpture Park in the fall of 2024. Click here to learn more about our first cohort and their exhibition, Bottomland (2022).

Artists, selected from an open call, will engage in site visits, lectures, screenings, readings, and dinners - meeting with local cultural producers, thinkers, and experts to collectively explore the city of Dallas. This program will conclude in a group exhibition at Sweet Pass Sculpture Park, emphasizing connection to the surrounding region, its communities, and environment.

2024 THEMATIC FOCUS: CONCRETE

This year's Sculpture School program examines the meaning and materiality of concrete, the planet's most widely used material. Our exploration will delve into the historical aspects of its production and usage, specifically in the construction of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, and examine its impact on the local. Participants will have the opportunity to engage directly with concrete through various demonstrations, experimenting with different techniques and methods. They will also contribute to creating a “common concrete” using materials from the park's grounds.

SCULPTURE SCHOOL ARTISTS

Ariel Wood (Austin, TX)

Ariel Wood is a Texas-based artist by way of California and Wisconsin. They received a BFA in printmaking and drawing from The University of Wisconsin, Madison 2016 and their MFA in Sculpture from The University of Texas at Austin 2022, where they were the recipient of the Lomis Slaughter, Jr. Endowment Scholarship In Sculpture and the Continuing College Fellowship. In 2022, Wood attended Watershed Ceramics’ Summer Residency and in 2023, they were a finalist for the Alice C. Cole Fellowship. Ariel Wood is a sculpture artist interested in the way plumbing and drainage can elicit notions of interconnectedness, liminality, and queerness. Wood picks and parses out those aspects of the larger system that appear strange, silly, or sentimental. They have exhibited their work nationally and internationally in Wisconsin, Illinois, Texas, New York, and Florence, Italy.

Dalila Sanabria (Lakeland, FL)

Dalila Sanabria is an American-Chilean-Colombian artist from central Florida. Working primarily with sculpture and video, her work references domestic sites and sacred architectures, accumulating organic materials as catalysts for exploring displacement, brownness, and belonging. Sanabria has received an MFA in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art, a BFA in Art, and a BA in Portuguese Studies from Brigham Young University. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, with recent exhibitions at Ortega y Gassett Projects in Brooklyn, NYC, Roman Susan Gallery in Chicago, IL, Tiger Strikes Asteroid Gallery in Philadelphia, PA, QUAID Gallery in Tampa, FL, the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, and the Czong Institute of Contemporary Art Museum in South Korea, with upcoming exhibitions the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art in Salt Lake City, UT.

Valentina Jager Lopezllera (Westbury, NY)

Valentina Jager Lopezllera is a visual artist, writer, and translator from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Her artistic practice dwells in the crossings of sculpture, performance, and writing; it is material-oriented, and site-specific. Her current research focuses on the intersection of prison geographies, natural space, and tourism. She holds an MA in Art in Context from the Berlin University of the Arts, focusing on public art and memorial culture, and a Ph.D. in Creative Writing in Spanish from the University of Houston. Since 2012, when she first encountered it, Valentina has become a Butoh practitioner and enthusiast.

Tatiana Sky (Chicago, IL)

Tatiana Sky is a sculptor living in Chicago, Illinois. Primarily working with ceramics, plaster, concrete and cast metal. Their work focuses on our relationship with natural environments and is informed by garden decor, architectural details and folklore. They received their BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2020.

Sculpture School is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Dallas Office of Arts & Culture