The final sculpture for this year’s Summer Sculpture Residency program is nearing completion and will be placed Wednesday in front of Buzzard Hall.

Davide Prete, a sculpture graduate student from Fontbonne University in St. Louis, is the artist who designed and constructed this work titled “Icarus.”

Prete said the piece symbolizes overcoming limits.

“Icarus was a figure that he was trying to escape from one reality to another one by building wings,” Prete said.

Prete said the piece looks like a set of wings and blends together forged steel and stainless steel. The piece is made of two pieces of forged steel standing vertically. It has10 pieces of stainless steel, five pieces with each piece of forged steel, coming up vertically and then making 90 degree angles and running perpendicular to the two pieces of forged steel.

Prete moved to United States with his wife from a small town in the Venice area four years ago where he was studying architecture and fine arts. When he arrived in United States he started studying sculpture art and he has experience building furniture, making jewelry and blacksmithing.

“I am a third-generation blacksmith,” Prete said. “I started architecture, but I was always in the shop with my father working. So this one is a like a good representation of my work because it is a lot of forged steel, but also it has architectural composition.”

Prete said having the shop available here made it possible to create “Icarus.”

“Here the help I had with the (hoist) and everything helped me a lot,” he said.

Prete was the fourth and last artist in this year’s Summer Sculpture Residency program.

Scott Ross, a sculpture graduate student from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, said his sculpture came to him by interlacing his fingers and thinking about the form that it made. This sculpture is untitled and located next to Doudna by the sculpture shop.

“My work is a lot about the built environment as it comes to in regards to architecture and then how its made, how its constructed,” Ross said.

He said in between getting his undergraduate degree and starting his graduate degree he spent 10 years as a carpenter in Michigan building houses.

“I started to look more (at) intimate space or more intimate idea when it came to how do the things in the built environment, how are they constructed,” Ross said “And it starts with the hand.”

He said that he likes the program and the fact that these student pieces are large public works, meaning it is his when he is constructing it, but when it is completed it is owned by the public.

Jeffery Boshart, professor of art, said the purpose of this program is to treat the participants as professional sculpture artists.

“The whole idea of the program here is to give them the opportunity to recognize a large scale piece for their portfolio and to gain the experience of working as a professional,” Boshart said. ” I am not a teacher during this project; I am a facilitator”

Marcus Smith can be reached at 581-7942 or maasmith6@eiu.edu

Davide Prete, A sculpture graduate major at Fontbonne University in St. Louis, makes adjustments to his sculpture for the Summer Sculpture Residency program June 20, 2011. His work is titled “Icarus” will be placed in front of Buzzard Hall. (Marcus Smith

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