2023 Rosen Sculpture Finalists (clockwise from top left): Adam Walls, Paris Alexander, Bob Doster, Wesley Stewart, David Sheldon, Hanna Jubran, Sophia Dominici, Beau Lyday, Glen Zwegardt, Carl Billingsley and David Boyajian.
Location: Schaefer Center for the Performing Arts. (participants will gather outdoors, at the reception tent adjacent to the center).
Cost: Event is FREE
A legacy of artistic excellence
The Rosen Sculpture Competition and Exhibition is an annual national juried competition presented by the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts on the campus of Appalachian State University and brings an astonishing array of contemporary sculpture to the campus and community each season.
To celebrate the competition’s 38th anniversary, join juror Christopher Mayer on an educational outdoor tour of the nine sculpture finalists. The tour concludes with an outdoor lunchtime reception adjacent to the Schaefer Center, and will feature an awards presentation, a tribute to the Rosen family, a “look back” at some of the competition’s most memorable moments!
The Rosen Sculpture Walk will take place rain or shine. In the event of heavy rain, a presentation by the juror, including images of the sculptures, will be held indoors at the Schaefer Center.
This program is made possible by the generous support the Martin & Doris Rosen Giving Fund/Debbie Rosen Davidson and David Rosen and the Charles & Nancy Rosenblatt Foundation.
For more information on the sculpture finalists visit the Rosen Sculpture Competition and Exhibition webpage.
JUROR’S INFORMATION
This year’s competition juror is Christopher Meyer. He is a native South Dakotan and Associate Professor of Sculpture at the University of South Dakota where he received his B.F.A. visual art in sculpture. Meyer earned his M.F.A. emphasizing in sculpture from the University of Montana in Missoula, MT. Meyer’s work ranges from non-objective to representational sculptural objects, sculptural installations, and cast-iron performance work; often focusing on the interaction between the viewer and the work. The work may evoke a tool or a toy but without a stated purpose, or it may simply imply a raw emotional state; his objective is to create work that is humanist in nature. Christopher’s studio practice tends to emphasize material and process and is made from a large variety of materials including cast metals, carved or fabricated wood and steel, fibers, mixed media or “whatever the piece needs to be.”
Since 2012 Meyer has made a deeper investment in cast iron; building a furnace and equipment necessary to make iron, bringing cast iron to the University of South Dakota and hosting an annual iron pour event at his home studio in rural South Dakota called the “Little Pour on the Prairie” each spring. He annually travels thousands of miles to cast iron. Meyer currently serves on the board of the Western Cast Iron Art Alliance and in October 2022 he hosted the 7th Biennial Western Cast Iron Art Conference. Meyer’s work has been published in several visual art publications regionally to internationally and has exhibited in over 100 regional and national exhibitions since joining the University of South Dakota in 2006. He has also been awarded the Belbas-Larson Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest award given to faculty at the University of South Dakota as well as the Knutson Distinguished Professor Award for Creative Research, the highest award given in the University of South Dakota’s College of Fine Arts.
The Turchin Center is proud to welcome Christopher Meyer as our distinguished juror for the 38th ANNUAL ROSEN OUTDOOR SCULPTURE COMPETITION & EXHIBITION 2023-2024.
Thanks to the continuing generosity of the Rosen Family, Martin and Doris’s legacy of support for quality visual arts programming has been continued by their children, and enables this beloved exhibition program to continue to develop and flourish. In July 1997, the Rosens donated Hephaestus, a large commissioned sculpture by Bruce White, to Appalachian State’s Permanent Collection, and it adorns the Rivers Street frontage area of the Schaefer Center for the Performing Arts to this day.
On the occasion of the Rosens’ 50th wedding anniversary in October 1999, their children established the Martin and Doris Rosen Scholarship to assist rising junior or senior art majors at Appalachian State. Tireless supporters of the arts, the Rosen Family has given so much of themselves over the years to ensure that the arts remain a strong foundation of campus and community life in the High Country. We wish to extend to them our deepest appreciation.