Rotating Sculpture Series

The City of O’Fallon, Missouri’s, rotating sculpture series, The Shape of Community is a citywide, temporary sculpture exhibition, featuring large-scale works of art in prominent areas throughout the city, loaned by artists for an 18-month period. This exhibition is unique to the entire St. Louis metropolitan area, and attracts people to visit sculpture sites throughout the city. The ten selected sculptures are presently displayed at City of O'Fallon properties.

The 2022/2023 series received dozens of entries from all corners of the United States. The City of O'Fallon's Cultural Arts Commission then narrowed those submissions to the 10 large-scale sculptures found on this page.


Submissions for the 2024/2025 Shape of Community sculpture series are open now, until February 6, 2024!

Please read before submitting: Shape of Community Rules and Regulations

Apply Now


2022/2023 Sculpture Installations

Per Aspera

Per Aspera

Artist: Melanie Reichert
Location: Renaud Center

This is my first large scale sculpture. Steel is a very industrialized material and it’s important to me for my work to be very natural and earthy-- these materials are derived and purified from the Earth and I want to make an homage to the roots of where it has come from. This also ties into a theme of opposites that I portray in my work through the process of surface altercation.

The 2D designs on this piece portray the balance between many opposites such as 2D and 3D, day and night, awake and asleep, life and death, and industrial and natural. To create these designs I have developed a process of polishing the metal, blocking out certain areas in sharpie, using blue-black oxide to darken the exposed metal, and then removing the sharpie with acetone to reveal the designs are left. The feminine aspects of my work are also important as I consider my role as a female artist in a male dominated field to be influential in the way that I work.


Spike

Spike

Artist: Vincent Houston
Location: Civic Park

My background is 40+ years of creating sculpture from glass and steel. I started doing glassblowing when I was 16 years old. I attended Columbia College in Columbia, MO, to pursue my degree in Fine Art. I left school to travel with art festivals and outdoor shows demonstrating my glass works (lampworking).

I switched to working with steel in the early 1990’s. It was then I was able to do larger sculpture work and create corporate pieces for local and national businesses. Working from company logos and the specific needs of my clients, I am able to create beautiful steel for them to display in their main lobbies or in an outdoor setting. Champs Chicken in New Bloomfield, Missouri is one such client. My work is also in private collections. I have made steel sculpture both large (13 feet tall) and small. I am pleased to work with collectors who enjoy both art modeled from nature as well as dragons and other fantasy pieces.


Ambient Current

Ambient Current

Artist: Kurt Breshears
Location: Westhoff Park

The concept behind this work is a philosophical and mathematical examination of patterns. In the written work The Critique of Judgement by philosopher Immanuel Kant, he discusses the way in which we use the concept of the universals of taste when judging the aesthetics of objects and their beauty. An example of this notion of universal ideas is that of mathematics. Employing the idea of mathematics in the work gives the work a sense of unity using math to achieve patterns. Based purely on numbers and patterns, M.C. Escher has been for me a lifelong influence. Being mindful of Kant’s ideas and Escher’s use of arithmetic, I believe that Ambient Current brings some semblance to visually pleasing and appealing art. It is the hope that the use of a heavy materials will convey the sense of how heavily weighted it is in our nature to judge things for beauty.


Cloud Cutter

Cloud Cutter

Artist: Joe Chesla
Location: Dames Park

Intuitive responses to the elemental nature of materials, the environment, and social engagement are central to my artistic investigations. I am drawn to moments found within natural and engineered structures, points that stand out as inherently, mathematically, or compositionally intriguing: surfaces, transitions, beginnings, and endings. These fragments lead me to consider the relationship between the rules of nature, how the built environment responds to those rules, and how we navigate our individual and collective lives.

I draw inspiration from the philosophies of Zen, Tao, and Wabi Sabi, especially ideas of emptiness, silence, and the contemplative mind. The works and writings of Agnes Martin and James Turrell, and the poems of Mary Oliver remind me that simplicity transcends, creating a natural pathway for internal contemplation, revelation, and finding our way.

My influences: steel, concrete, wood, glass, rust, algae, etc. often serve a very utilitarian purpose, to exemplify a biological truth or inherent physical transformation. I find transcendence and spirituality in simple materials and the rules they follow. It is my aim to humanize these materials by amplifying the duality of imposing strength while creating a sense of comfort and longing/touch. When done well, human-made environments translate the organic growth and biomorphic building we see in nature. In these seemingly small artistic moments, where a conceptual thought merges with material expression, I find transcendence and poetry in humble materials.


Heart of Gold

Heart of Gold

Artist: Jeremy Colbert
Location: Sports Park

This totem-like piece begins with some abstract forms that resemble a thunderbird form and rises above the golden heart suspended below it. Both are symbols of wisdom, power and survival. The heart is shining from the phoenix form as symbolism of love for all and is the symbol for a new beginning and renewal.


Longshot

Longshot

Artist: Nathan Pierce
Location: Fort Zumwalt Park

Nathan's large public sculptures reflect not only his personal interest in architectural forms, but also a belief that communication plays a fundamental role in our perceptions of the world we live in. His work has always dealt with the conflicts of confinement and freedom and exploring catalyst between the two: building or destroying communication. “The material I use and the process of my work is directly influenced by experience. Inspired by his many years in the construction business, the idea to create sculpture from those same materials seemed natural and permanent. The decision to utilize the benefits of structural steel in my work also comes from being inspired by the fabrication process. “I enjoy the dedication and commitment that is required with this material, it helps build character."


Efflorescence

Efflorescence

Artist: Brigit Ciskowski
Location: O'Day Park

Focusing on growth and movement, I am inspired by plants and the paths they take as they grow. These large, rooted structures are created with exaggerated turns to create a sense of whimsy and uneasiness. Although sturdy, they aren’t meant to appear static, but instead searching and growing. They demand the viewer’s attention and can’t be stopped.

When creating my work, I think about how plants grow and the forms they take on throughout their cycle. I allow the forms to change from my original idea as necessary while in the building process; spontaneity and adaptation are a part of life, as well as my way of keeping the fabrication process fun and making the end result truly one of a kind.

Life is unpredictable and ever-changing, with obstacles thrown our way each day that can cause a change of course. Whether we let the outside circumstances keep us from growing or not is up to us. Blending this idea with nature’s persistence and resilience, I focus on building a form that represents strength and perseverance.


Tumbleweed

Tumbleweed

Artist: Alison Oullette-Kirby
Location: City Hall

Through the objects I make I endeavor to build allied relationships between a viewer and myself. Most often, I build work that either creates or stands as an expression of uncertainty, instability, discomfort, and awkwardness. These are states of being I believe are shared points of mutually understood, if not uncomfortable contemplation. The forms I make are familiar, specific, and recognizable; yet the circumstance in which they are presented can be uncomfortable though highly crafted. In a way, the objects become surrogates for my state of being, and a mechanism for me to engender analogous relationships with others.


INFINITE GREEN

INFINITE GREEN

Artist: Leticia Bajuyo
Location: Ozzie Smith Sports Complex

INFINITE GREEN is a sculptural piece created with repurposed artificial grass and one reclaimed push lawn mower. What appears to be one very long strip of grass coils into two large rolls, creating an infinite loop of perfectly-manicured green lawn. In the center of the two turf rolls, where the material passes from one roll to the next, sits a well-worn lawnmower, as if positioned on a hamster wheel. This machine, salvaged from a neighbor’s sidewalk on trash day, was most likely kicked to the curb in favor of a newer model. INFINITE GREEN stirs the questions: What is ultimately sacrificed in an endless quest for the perfect lawn, the perfect home, the perfect life, the perfect version of the American Dream? To what end do our natural resources withstand overuse, and what price will we pay for their exploitation?


With Solid Sound and Stable Stance

With Solid Sound and Stable Stance

Artist: Noah Kirby
Location: CarShield Field

Through my artwork I am exploring my place in our collective world; how to relate where I’m from with where I’m at. I endeavor to define my role as a contributor in a larger context, frequently taking a critical view of social, political and cultural issues that alienate how a singular individual relates in our collective culture. Often referencing my working class roots in labor and construction, I explore ideas of authority by juxtaposing my familiarity with trade oriented materials and processes with abstract forms and structures. My works are often partitions that create a separation or demarcate a boundary. I see them as moments of contingent space where the viewer is faced with the circumstance of their own authority. In asserting my place in the world in this manner I can express my class identity and connect with those that would value the constructed world as a meaningful place of our own collective creation.


Permanent Sculpture Installations

Shape of Community sculptures are occasionally selected to become permanent installations in O'Fallon parks and at civic facilities. Explore our lineup of Shape of Community sculptures that have found their permanent homes here in our community.

Blue Rails

Blue Rail

Artist: David Lobdell
Location: Civic Park
First Featured: Shape of Community 2020-21

Lobdell’s sculpture deals with communication and he is engaged in a complex investigation of language through a blending of historical sources, both ancient and modern. Binary code forms the conceptual skeleton of the digital age and Lobdell has playfully investigated inherent verbal analogies through both the literal sculpting of human skeletons along with describing the movement of binary code through space. Vortexes, Euclidean planes, streaming lines of code and spiritual mandalas are formed from the basic building blocks of zeroes and ones.


In The Room

In The Room

Kelly Ludeking
Location: O'Day Park
First Featured: Shape of Community 2020-21

“In the Room” is the material manifestation of my ruminations on the movement of family farming toward industrial agriculture, a transition I experienced firsthand growing up on the Ludeking farm in Iowa.

This sculpture was created largely with discarded symbols of the farming and fueling businesses. The bulk of the elephant’s head is a combine corn head, an imperative piece of equipment to harvest corn. The body contains a fuel tank, something most family farmers had on site to refuel their tractors. There are semi-tractor parts scattered throughout the sculpture to represent the global transportation of what the collaboration of our earth & people have produced. Having been raised within the endangered family farm culture, I reflect on my upbringing often, realizing how government subsidies & interests influenced so many aspects of our lives. The elephant in the room explores the ambiguity of collaboration versus exploitation where familial and planetary resources are considered.


Plan a route to see the latest sculptures

Hover over the plus symbol to reveal a sculpture.

Cloud Cutter

Cloud Cutter

Per Aspera

Per Aspera

Spike

Spike

Longshot

Longshot

Tumbleweed

Tumbleweed

Ambient Current

Ambient Current

With Solid Sound and Stable Stance

With Solid Sound and Stable Stance

INFINITE GREEN

INFINITE GREEN

Heart of Gold

Heart of Gold

Efflorescence

Efflorescence

  • Cloud Cutter

    Cloud Cutter

  • Per Aspera

    Per Aspera

  • Spike

    Spike

  • Longshot

    Longshot

  • Tumbleweed

    Tumbleweed

  • Ambient Current

    Ambient Current

  • With Solid Sound and Stable Stance

    With Solid Sound and Stable Stance

  • INFINITE GREEN

    INFINITE GREEN

  • Heart of Gold

    Heart of Gold

  • Efflorescence

    Efflorescence


Plan a route to see the latest sculptures

The Shape of Community sculpture map (PDF)


Contact Cultural Arts staff

Marty Linson, Cultural Arts Coordinator mlinson@ofallon.mo.us 636-379-2578