Appalachian State University

Table of Contents

Tours

  1. 39th Rosen Sculpture Walk

    Self-guided tours of the 2025 sculptures can be taken daily through April 2026.

    Stops

    1. Harry McDaniel (Braid, 2022) Aluminum

      Learn more: https://appsummer.appstate.edu/event/39th-rosen-sculpture-walk/

      Harry McDaniel was born in 1959 in Wichita, Kansas and now lives in Asheville, North Carolina. Through childhood, his creativity took many forms; it wasn’t until his mid-20s that he began to see himself as an artist. He took a few painting and sculpture classes although he is primarily self-taught. McDaniel received several awards in early exhibitions and his first significant acknowledgment came in 1988 when he was commissioned to create a sculpture for the Agricultural History Park in Derwood, Maryland. That project deepened his interest in creating large-scale artwork for public spaces. Two fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council further propelled his creative exploration. Since 1999, he has installed a new public sculpture almost every year in locations from Michigan to Florida. Throughout his career, McDaniel’s design concepts have been infused with his attraction to natural forms, fascination with movement, interest in human interactions, and his humor.

    2. Kyle Van Lusk (Unexpected Harmony, 2023) Steel, Maple branch

      Learn more: https://appsummer.appstate.edu/event/39th-rosen-sculpture-walk/

      Artist and educator Kyle Van Lusk has been creating and exhibiting sculpture since the early 90s reflecting a variety of traditional mediums and processes. He is best known for his large-scale works in steel that have been displayed throughout the Southeast including Duke University, Stringer's Ridge Park in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the Creative Arts Guild's sculpture garden in Dalton, Georgia.

      Lusk’s artwork is largely influenced by creative processes, the natural landscape, and tool-like forms, all of which are apparent in Unexpected Harmony. This work is a response to a maple tree branch that was struck by lightning outside of his studio in 2023. The resulting steel construction was created as a harmonious yet contrasting juxtaposition to that natural linear form.

      Lusk currently resides in Brevard, North Carolina, where he serves as Professor of Art at Brevard College. Lusk has worked with undergraduate students to explore sculpture and grow as artists since 1998. He has found that teaching encourages self-reflection and creative growth.

    3. Hanna Jubran (The Seven-Pointed Star, 2023) Steel, paint

      Learn more: https://appsummer.appstate.edu/event/39th-rosen-sculpture-walk/

      Between nature and the sculpture, Hanna Jubran is condensing time and space. They are ever-changing. The seven-point stars that make up the Big Dipper asterism are associated with many different myths and folk tales around the world. The Big Dipper is a prominent constellation in the northern sky in the summer and is one of the first star patterns learned in astronomy. On the Cherokee flag, the seal is surrounded by seven yellow seven-pointed stars. Although this sculpture is painted with specific colors, it changes depending on the time of day and season. The sculpture changes as the viewer moves around the piece and its relation to the landscape.

    4. Viktoria Banovic (Majka, 2024) Cast aluminum

      Learn more: https://appsummer.appstate.edu/event/39th-rosen-sculpture-walk/

      Viktoria Banovic is an oil painter and sculptor based in North Carolina; she works with a diversity of materials including steel, cast metal, and clay. Her artistic practice is rooted in exploring the human experience, identity, and the figure. She creates work that spans a variety of styles and media.

      Banovic recently graduated with a BFA in Sculpture and Ceramics, and her work reflects both a deep technical skill and a continuous desire for personal and artistic growth. Driven by an innate need to create, she approaches each piece with a commitment to pushing boundaries and challenging herself. Every project serves as an opportunity for learning and improvement, making her artistic journey one of constant evolution. Whether through painting or sculpture, Banovic’s work invites viewers to connect with the raw emotions and complexities of the human form and experience.

    5. Glenn Zweygardt (Sky Stone, 2024) Painted steel, cast bronze, cast glass, granite

      Learn more: https://appsummer.appstate.edu/event/39th-rosen-sculpture-walk/

      The works of Glenn Zweygardt are simultaneously ancient and contemporary. With his use of diverse materials – cast bronze, glass, iron, marble, stainless steel, stone, and granite – he creates complex media sculptures that exemplify a master of the threedimensional form.

      Zweygardt possesses an uncanny ability to fuse dissimilar elements and concepts, naturally occurring and fabricated forms, into structures that command the attention of the observer. This interaction of artist, nature, and technology has a unifying effect on the observer's imagery and psyche.

      Duplication and relationship are a recurring theme found throughout Zweygardt's work. A carefully chosen stone, cast and duplicated in bronze, aluminum, or steel, becomes the basis of definite architectural themes that manifest in a range of sizes. Kansas-born, Zweygardt earned a BFA from Wichita State in 1967, an MFA from the Maryland Institute of Art in 1969, and is an emeritus Professor of Sculpture at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Zweygardt works independently in his workshop in Alfred Station, New York. Here his work continues to evolve – varied shapes and rich surfaces, transparent and dense forms, concept and technical relationships, personal and collective perceptions – into fine art of eminent legacy.

    6. Matthew Armante (Orbit, 2022) Painted steel

      Learn more: https://appsummer.appstate.edu/event/39th-rosen-sculpture-walk/

      Matthew Armante was born and raised in Michigan; he remained in the state until he graduated from Western Michigan University in 2004. After college, Armante took a job teaching art at a high school in South Carolina for two and a half years. While teaching, he decided that he wanted to complete an MFA in sculpture. He received his MFA from East Carolina University in 2010 and currently teaches at Pitt Community College.

      Armante lives in Winterville, North Carolina. He works with a large range of materials and scale, focusing most of his energy on public art. His outdoor work has been included in public venues more than 100 times across North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Michigan, Ohio, and Mississippi. Most of his ideas are influenced by nature and Eastern philosophy which he blends with formalist practices.

    7. Scott Strader (Summer’s End, 2024) Aluminum, stainless steel

      Learn more: https://appsummer.appstate.edu/event/39th-rosen-sculpture-walk/

      Scott Strader received his BFA in 1990 from Georgia Southern University and his MFA from Georgia State University in 1992. From 1990-95, Strader was the assistant to Atlanta artist Caroline Monatgue. He is now the owner of Mercury Metals, Inc. specializing in metal fabrication and art installation. Strader’s work deals with tension and balance, giving each piece a sense of movement. The use of stainless and aluminum is important because of its sense of permanence. Strader is meticulous about craftsmanship and the fabrication of each piece. In his latest work, he attempts to hide his welds to give the piece a look of being poured as opposed to being fabricated.

    8. Joni Younkins-Herzog (Floramingo, 2020) Mixed media

      Learn more: https://appsummer.appstate.edu/event/39th-rosen-sculpture-walk/

      Joni Younkins-Herzog is an Athens, Georgia, sculptor and former professor at the State College of Florida, New College, and Ringling School of Art and Design. She earned an MFA from Indiana University and a BFA from the University of Georgia in Athens. Younkins-Herzog has exhibited her work throughout the United States including New York, Fort Lauderdale, San Francisco, the “Art Prize” in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as well as abroad in Italy, Columbia, Peru, Poland, and Ghana. Her sculptures are hybrids, mythologies, and metaphors about flowers and plants. Science is the architectural inspiration as seen in organic flowing structures, Fibonacci spirals, anatomical appropriations, and botany.

    9. Andrew Light (Burgeon Column, 2024) Steel

      Learn more: https://appsummer.appstate.edu/event/39th-rosen-sculpture-walk/

      Sculptor Andrew Light is based in central Kentucky. Academically trained and in private practice for over 20 years, he maintains a prolific studio practice. In addition to his formal training, he has worked for two masters of sculptural practice, John Henry and Richard Hunt, eventually serving as head of fabrication for both. Having exhibited internationally and in over 15 states, Light has developed a reputation for professionalism and high aesthetic standards.

      Constructed over the course of two years, Burgeon Column is the result of a deep contemplation of lessons learned from his mentors. Pursing ideas in composition, materials, technique, and time, and rooted in Vitruvian space, the composition sprouts upward, entangling upon itself in echoes of tall grass meadows. The interweaving of forms gives way to the individual moments, a thousand little stories all happening together

    10. Adam Walls (War Stories, 2014) Fabricated, painted steel

      Learn more: https://appsummer.appstate.edu/event/39th-rosen-sculpture-walk/

      Adam Walls has been creating art for public exhibition since 2004. He received his BA in Art Education in 1996 from Limestone College and taught art in art centers, public schools, and from his own studio until receiving his MFA in sculpture from Winthrop University in 2005. Since then, Wall’s work has appeared in Sculpture Magazine, been the topic of discussion on NPR and ETV, and has been exhibited in over 100 outdoor sculpture exhibitions. Adam Walls currently resides in Tryon, North Carolina, and serves as the head of the sculpture program at UNC-Pembroke.

      Walls’ sculpture is concept-driven and often highly viewer interactive. The conceptual component of his work is often derived from a memory that was stirred by the shape of some memento held on to since childhood. These memories stir thoughts and experiences that challenge and guide his creative process. There are elements in much of his larger works that are derived from a love of fantasy, escapism, and pop-culture imagery. Walls’ sculpture ranges in size drastically from minuscule to monumental. In whatever ways viewers choose to engage with Walls’ work, the artist finds that it is not always necessary to understand his concept, but it is important to him that he provide an experience that might encourage the viewer to see and engage with art more often