Stamford Downtown announces ArtNormous
ArtNORMOUS in Stamford Downtown presented by Reckson & Cappelli Organization in partnership with George Comfort & Sons will be on display in Stamford Downtown beginning in June. Art in Public Places is one of Stamford Downtown’s signature events which engages the public in the arts and enlivens Downtown streets and parks. Now in its 31st year, this public art program is one of the City’s premiere cultural events. Since its inception, Art in Public Places has grown in size and prominence, providing major works of outdoor sculpture for all to enjoy and drawing a regional audience to our City.
This year’s exhibit ArtNORMOUS in Stamford Downtown features seven larger than life bronze works of art from 4 renowned artists including: Joy Brown: One Leaning on Another, Two Together; Jim Rennert: Inner Dialogue, Timing, Walking the Tightrope; Bjørn Okholm Skaarup: Hippo Ballerina and Martha Pettigrew: Gossip. The Rennert, Brown and Skaarup sculptures are on loan from Cavalier Galleries of New York, Greenwich, Nantucket and Palm Beach.
These ArtNORMOUS sculptures will be on display to be enjoyed by area residents and visitors through September, 2024. This exhibit demonstrates the extraordinary commitment to art and culture that is part of Stamford Downtown’s DNA. It is with deep appreciation that we recognize the presenting sponsors of this year’s sculptures: ArtNORMOUS is presented by Reckson and the Cappelli Organization in partnership with George Comfort & Sons. Many thanks go as well to our many other supporting sponsors.
This is an exhibit you can’t miss! Take a while to visit the sculptures and to take in all Stamford Downtown has to offer, from our eclectic restaurants to boutique shopping, to the beautiful flowers that grace the streets. Enjoy!
For more information on the exhibit and to view a map of the sculpture locations, click here.
Sculpture details
| ARTIST | SCULPTURE | DETAILS | |
| 1 | Joy Brown | One Leaning on Another | Bronze: 78 x 80 x 97 inches |
| 2 | Joy Brown | Two Together | Bronze: 97 x 55 x 55 inches |
| 3 | Jim Rennert | Inner Dialogue | Bronze: 150 x 60 x 60 inches |
| 4 | Jim Rennert | Timing | Bronze: 146 x 60 x 60 inches |
| 5 | Jim Rennert | Walking the Tightrope | Bronze & Steel: 132 x 60 x 66 inches |
| 6 | Bjørn Okholm Skaarup | Hippo Ballerina | Bronze & Polychrome Patina: 15 feet tall |
| 7 | Martha Pettigrew | Gossip | Bronze: 98 in x 85 in x 62 inches |
Joy Brown
Joy Brown’s art reflects the influence of her childhood in Japan and of the rigorous discipline of her apprenticeship in traditional Japanese wood-fired ceramics. Wood firing and working with clay became a way of life, defining an aesthetic that guides Brown’s work and life. For 40 years, her work with clay has challenged and nurtured her, enriched, and transformed her life. The work has evolved from vessels and animal shapes to the human-like forms and abstract wall reliefs of recent years. The changes have come out of her relationship to the materials and process—the clay, kiln, firing, and her changing intentions. For the past 20 years Joy has also been working in bronze—most recently in China, where she’s made larger-than-life figures for public spaces. The forms she makes—pots and sculpture, bronze and ceramic—are a tangible expression of her evolving inner self. There is beauty and power in their quiet simplicity. Brown works in New England where she built her studio and a 30-foot-long Japanese style wood-firing tunnel kiln (anagama).
Jim Rennert
Jim Rennert was born in 1958, and grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Salt Lake City, Utah. After ten trying years of working in business, Rennert was inspired to explore his artistic vision and embarked upon his career as a sculptor in 1990. He began exhibiting in galleries in 1993 and has since gained significant recognition. Rennert’s seminal series of works is immediately identifiable, with simplified figures and forms depicting men in suits. Combining the traditional medium of bronze with modern forms of flat laser cut steel, he illustrates concepts of corporate success and the obstacles faced by the modern working man. Rennert continually exhibits at the major US art fairs as well as galleries in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Florida, Utah, New Mexico, Maine, Colorado, and British Columbia, with private and corporate collectors world-wide. From June 2014 through May 2015, Rennert was honored with a monumental public installation of his iconic sculpture, THINK BIG, which was on exhibition in New York City’s Union Square, in cooperation with the NYC Parks Department.
Bjørn Okholm Skaarup
My work plays between the limits of nature and culture,” says sculptor Bjørn Okholm Skaarup. From 1994-2004, Okholm Skaarup was an artist at the Danish National Museum, Copenhagen, before moving to Florence and receiving a PhD from the European University Institute in 2009. While in Florence, he studied the work of Renaissance sculptors Donatello, Michelangelo, and Giambologna, learning the vanishing art of large-scale bronze casting. “I am constantly trying to improve my skills in modeling, and see how far the medium can go,” Okholm Skaarup explains. “How many fun details you can add, how many forms you can create—ideally large, heavy forms that rest on light foundations, so the work appears as vibrant as possible. With bronze, you can make the most dynamic shapes imaginable.” In 2017 Okholm Skaarup’s monumental sculpture, Hippo Ballerina, was exhibited at 64th Street and Broadway, opposite Lincoln Center and has been on display in Stamford Downtown since May of 2023. Bjørn Okholm Skaarup lives and works in New York City. He is a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors.
Martha Pettigrew
Formerly an illustrator, Martha Pettigrew had established herself as one of the foremost Western contemporary sculptors. Martha’s work is sought after by institutions, corporations, privately funded sculpture gardens, and many private collectors. Featured on the cover of Southwest Art magazine, July 1988, Pettigrew said, “I find the everyday tasks of the native people of the Southwest, especially the women, to be an endless source of inspiration. If I have achieved my goal as a sculptor the viewer will feel an emotional attachment and never tire of seeing the piece. The sculpture may become a source of inspiration in their lives.” Martha graduated from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Martha Pettigrew passed away in 2018. Gossip was purchased by the Friends of Stamford Downtown in 2004 as a gift to the City of Stamford and makes its permanent home here in Stamford Downtown.
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