Space Flower, 2023
Wesley Stewart
Augusta, GA
Painted and welded steel
144” x 64” x 62”
Photo by Kyla Willoughby
Artist Statement
Wesley L. Stewart was born and raised in Augusta, Georgia. Stewart’s current artwork explores biomes juxtaposed with abstract shapes, lines, and pattern, thus creating contrast of space, traditional fine art, and street art. He is interested in public art and how murals, sculpture, and installations reinvent or alter spaces.
Stewart received a BFA from Augusta University in Augusta, Georgia and a MFA – emphasis in Sculpture – from Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia. He also works under the moniker Regal Hyena and is engaged in cross-disciplinary collaboration with other artists. Gestural energy, scale, linear marks, biota, movement, pattern, intense colors, textures, Street Art, cartoons, video games, mixed media, and materials are woven into the work. His public work can be found on the University of North Georgia campus in Dahlonega, Georgia and at the entrance to the Beacon Station Apartments in Augusta, Georgia.
About the Artist
My current artwork explores abstract shapes, lines, and pattern juxtaposed with biomes, thus creating contrast of space, traditional fine art, and Street Art. A Biome is an area of the planet and is made of several ecosystems of living and nonliving things in an environment, often formed in response to a shared climate. I am interested in public art and how murals, sculpture, and installations reinvent or alter spaces.
I build three-dimensional work one piece at a time – without strict guidelines – since exhausted in countless sketchbooks and drawings. This allows for a conversation between the material and artist or what I call “Drawing in Space” (DiS). Sculptures are either left in their raw form, painted, or combined with other materials.