Chances are, if you’ve been wandering the public spaces of New York City in the past several years, or opened any number of interior and architecture magazines, you’ve come across the work of Fitzhugh Karol. The sculptor, who is also the Artist in Residence for The Brooklyn Home Company, has been QUITE busy.
From installations in Prospect Park, Dumbo, and the Mario Cuomo Bridge, to designing custom elements that adorn the stunning spaces created by TBHC, his graphic-natural style, while a hallmark of his work, is ever-evolving as it gets interpreted in new mediums. We checked in with Fitzhugh last month to learn a bit more about his process and inspiration.
You make a diverse range of tabletop pieces to XL sculptures, and functional design pieces like beds, fireplace screens, stools, and more. What is your favorite type of object to create, or do you thrive off the diversity?
I try and follow the juice, and that can be found in a lot of places! Big sculpture work gets me most excited but then making a desk out of the scrap steel from that sculpture gets me just as fired up. My evolution started with purely sculptural influences, then craft influences, followed by the desire to make my own furniture - things just keep rolling themselves together and interrelating. It’s exciting I suppose that I can bring a common thread of energy and form within different types of objects.
How did you develop such a distinct style that ties together your diverse work? It’s become your own visual language, and we’d love to hear how you see it evolving.
Initially, I’d say landscapes have defined my style and the forms I gravitate towards. Many of the shapes in the work come from the silhouettes of hills both observed and recalled. Then I always love stairs and I’ve always drawn stairs, even when I was a kid. Producing countless variations in both three dimensions and on paper using my vernacular of shapes has created what I suppose you could call my visual language - these lines and forms have just seemed like the obvious shapes to explore for me. How it might evolve? I’m not sure how… but it will!
Best part of your job?
The feeling of possibility. The chance to chase a spark. Taking a concept or observation from a small piece of paper to something on a large scale that the world can communicate with - and in so doing I have the opportunity to speak through these objects with a non-verbal language.
The toughest part of your job?
Keeping up!
What’s the weirdest thing you did during 2020?
Wiped diluted Lysol on my fruit and veggies for a few weeks :/ Glad that didn’t last… That might be the weirdest.
Probably the best part in the early goings last year was doing more imaginative play with my kids, finding forts in the bushes, etc - that was a special time.
Where do you go for inspiration?
Certainly seeing new landscapes inspires but so might a ship’s hull, or a bridge, or a barn. The other day I was cutting paper to make sculpture models and the manner in which a candle rolled up parts of the sliced paper got me so excited. I will say also that music is a thread throughout everything - music inspires me to get in flow when I’m observing the world and it’s so often a part of the flow of being in the studio - I’m sure shapes, or maybe it’s the gestures of the shapes, are influenced by the music that surrounds me.
Clearly moving thousand-pound sculptures around the country comes with its own challenges. We’d love to hear a related crazy story.
Every major transport is its own adventure with a concert of trailers, cranes, and telehandlers - the fun part! When loading up the multi-ton sculpture I did for the new Mario M Cuomo Bridge this past June, our final trailer load was ¾” taller than the legal limit so we took some air out of the tires, measured, and complied.
A duo of cranes operating under the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges was another favorite install.
Then this fall we designed 6 sculptures to be made such that their parts would fit in shipping containers to ship to Australia - gradually I’ve learned to work with consideration to where the work is going, or might go one day...
What’s your biggest hope for how people experience your work?
I hope the work sparks a sense of joy and that people are physically drawn to the work - to be within it, sit or climb on it... I love seeing kids run towards big sculptures and interact with them particularly. Viewers can create their own visual associations be them landscape, animal, celestial, you name it - that’s part of the fun and playful aspect of the work as well as the genesis of the forms for me.
