Artist Blessing Hancock to soon unveil her most ambitious sculpture to date, one of Nashville’s largest public art commissions
At three stories tall and created in collaboration with the local community, “Loqui” is the sculpture artist’s most innovative piece in her nearly 20-year career
Nashville, Tenn. (April 11, 2024) – Celebrated sculpture artist Blessing Hancock, together with Metro Arts Nashville in Nashville, Tenn., will soon reveal her latest sculpture Loqui, one of the city’s largest public art commissions.
Known for her emphasis on community and for being a solo female artist in a male-centric field, Hancock’s Loqui is her largest and most technologically complex work to date.
At three stories tall, Loqui (meaning “to speak” in Latin) is a 32 x 32 foot illuminated stainless steel sculpture located at nationally-recognized entertainment venue, The Fairgrounds Nashville.
Shaped like an abstracted megaphone, Loqui features a sophisticated lighting system to illuminate The Fairgrounds at night, enlivening the surrounding area with color patterns that play against the sculpture’s surface.
Inspired by Nashville’s rich storytelling history and culture, cut into the sculpture are hundreds of phrases contributed by the city’s residents.
Community engagement is at the heart of Blessing’s work. Planning for Loqui happened during the COVID-19 pandemic so the artist hired a local community liaison, Miriam Speyer, to use focus groups, one-on-one conversations and an online survey to ask Nashvillians what the city means to them.
More than 400 Nashville residents contributed to the piece, ranging in age from 5 to 85.
“My goal for every piece is for it to become a powerful landmark that enriches the human experience and creates an atmosphere of participation, curiosity and connection to community,” Hancock said. “I like to tap into the place and the people who are going to be visiting the work. Loqui is a dual megaphone shape, so it gives local community members a voice but it’s also listening to what they have to say, giving them a chance to be heard.”
Hancock is a standout in her industry for the innovative path she took in the sculpture field, choosing early in her career to bring together experts in fabrication, engineering and installation, so she could solely focus on her creative process.
While the majority of Hancock’s contemporaries come from architectural backgrounds and run collaborative design studios, often using computer-generated algorithms to design sculptures,
Hancock designs her pieces alone. She then subcontracts the build to various fabricators across the U.S. to ensure the right team is bringing her artistic vision to life and that they can work within a client’s budget and timeline.
Blessing is also known in her field for being a female in a majority-male space, which research shows is a theme throughout the art industry.
According to a 2019 Williams College analysis of 18 major U.S. art museums, researchers found just 13% of artists featured in those collections were women.
“Many people are surprised when they find out I’m the person behind this work and I enjoy breaking that stereotype,” Hancock said. “I find I connect well with communities because I’m comfortable with myself and my femininity. It can be a disarming power and it encourages people to open up and be vulnerable to me in new and engaging ways, which has a direct impact on my art.”
Installation of Loqui is underway and will be unveiled in summer 2024. To create the monumental piece, Hancock worked with Gizmo Art Production, Bryan Starr of Tarantino Engineering Consultants, and Art Up Nashville.
Loqui is the first of seven public art installations from Hancock slated for 2024. To date, the artist has completed more than 50 signature public art pieces which can be found around the world, from Tucson, Ariz., to Chengdu, China.
For more information about Blessing Hancock, visit BlessingHancock.com. For more details about Metro Arts Nashville, go to MetroArtsNashville.com.
###
Media Contact:
Haley Raymond
(207) 227-7850
haley@blessinghancock.com
About Blessing Hancock
Blessing Hancock is an international public artist creating monumental, site-specific sculptures. To date, she has created more than 50 international public and private sculptures. Her palette consists of metal, acrylic, and colored light in the form of programmable kinetic lighting. All her public projects feature a community engagement piece that connects the artwork back to the community it resides in. Blessing’s work has been featured in Bloomberg, Sculpture magazine, and The New York Times. She has received numerous awards including the Mayor’s Urban Design Award from the City of Calgary, Alberta, the Public Art Network Year in Review Award for Ballroom Luminoso and the CODA Merit Award in Healthcare for Camaraderie.
For more information visit: www.blessinghancock.com
Follow Blessing on Instagram @blessinghancock
About Metro Arts Nashville
The mission of Metro Arts Nashville is to drive a vibrant and equitable community through the arts. Metro Arts strives to ensure that all Nashvillians have access to a creative life, and it works toward this goal through community investments, artist and organizational training, public art, and direct programs involving residents in all forms of arts and culture. Metro Arts receives operational support from the Tennessee Arts Commission, and additional information is available online at www.MetroArtsNashville.com.