ArtScapes, now in its sixth year, is a multi-month event with a mission to bring art into the community. Buck Hill Falls provides a spectacular setting for a variety of artistic expressions. ArtScapes is sponsored by the Buck Hill Art Association and made possible by generous members and donors.

Patrick Jacobs is a Brooklyn-based artist whose work addresses the natural world, landscape and the environment through a range of mediums including sculpture, installation and printmaking.

The group of three rough hewn bronze sculptures, installed for BHAA’s ArtScape 2024 outside the Tennis Tea, is from the series, “Les Fleurs du Mal,” which takes its name from Charles Baudelaire’s eponymous book of poems.

The bronzes were cast from mud, sticks and other materials initially gathered from the forest floor in New Hampshire during Jacobs’ residency at the MacDowell Colony in 2016. Recalling human, botanical and animal forms, they conjure up spirits of the landscape that are whimsical, playful and stand guard over the environment.

The ArtScapes installation, is arranged at different locations within a flower bed of azaleas in the center of the Tennis Tea driveway, forming a kind of garden of fleurs du mal, emerging from the landscape.

The fidelity of the casting captures finger and handprints, sagging blobs, and broken sticks, showing the immediacy of their creation. The bronzes are a counterpoint to the meticulousness of Jacobs’ dioramas and other sculptures and installations. However, the different materials and processes provide an impetus for a more fluid and strange nature – a mysterious hortulus animae, both enticing and liberating.

Jacobs received an MFA in 1999 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has exhibited both nationally and internationally. His recent work is currently on view at the New York Botanical Garden’s “Wonderland: Curious Nature” exhibition through October 27th.

Below are the three sculptures installed for ArtScapes 2024:

Photo of a bronze sculpture by artist Patrick Jacobs, entitled "Four-Legged Tulip Man" installed in a bed of Azaleas that are in bloom — Four-Legged Tulip Man, 2019
65.5 x 41.5 x 37 in.
Bronze.

Photo of a bronze sculpture by artist Patrick Jacobs, entitled "Smiling Head" installed in a bed of Azaleas that are in bloom — “Smiling Head” 2019.
16 (h) x 27 (w) x 7 (d) in.
Bronze.

Photo of a bronze sculpture by artist Patrick Jacobs, entitled "Scarecrow" installed in a bed of Azaleas that are in bloom — Scarecrow, 2019
32.5 (h) x 21 (w) x 23 (d) in.
Bronze.

2023 ArtScapes

“Potentialities” by Nicholas Papadakis

NICHOLAS PAPADAKIS

Nicholas Papadakis is a Brooklyn-based artist currently exploring humankind’s relationship with Earth
through an ongoing series of transparent sculptures & photographs entitled “Potentialities”.
The artwork commission for Buck Hill Falls will be a transparent sculpture of a young artist in
the act of creating a landscape portrait painting of the old Buck Hill Falls Inn.
The transparent figure will be using all transparent sculptural elements, including: paint brushes,
palette, easel, smock, art supplies, and accessories to envision a transparent painting. The entire
tableau will be installed in the middle of Paiste Pond such that the figure and easel appear to be
standing on the surface of the water.
Papadakis creates transparent sculptures to explore the world of human constructs: objects, ideas, and
events. Each artwork visualizes an aspect of the question: what is the value of human experience, and our
manufactured lifestyles, as balanced against environmental impact?

These sculptures have a dual existence as photographs that capture singular moments within a site-
specific installation.

“I patiently study the play of light and color refracting through the clear objects, I am in search
of a transformative moment to photograph – one in which the tangible sculptures are rendered
insubstantial and hallucinatory – one in which I can imagine the subject’s past, present, and
future – from the ‘a-ha’ moment of inception to it’s faded memory.”
Each photograph becoming a timeless space for contemplating the impact that humans exert upon the
natural world.
Exhibitions
2023 – Potentialities – Buck Hill Falls, PA
2023 – Recycle 2023 – BWAC, Brooklyn (Crtrs: John Cloud Kaiser & Renee Radenberg)
2020 – Silver Linings: Clouds in Art & Science – Museums For Laget, Norway
2019 – In The Clouds – University of Stavanger, Norway (Crtr: Vladimir Jankovic)
2018 – Every Day is Earth Day – 313 Butler Gallery, Brooklyn (Crtr: Jonathan Schorr)
2016 – ArtSlope – Prospect Park, Brooklyn (Crtr: NY Parks Dept)
Education
The Rhode Island School of Design – BFA Painting
Brown University – Holography