Tom Stancliffe (b. 1955), originally from the Chicago area, is a sculptor who lives and maintains a large studio outside of New Hartford, Iowa. Stancliffe is best known for his large public sculptures created in bronze and stainless steel that draw inspiration from both the historical and contemporary contexts of a given site. He has completed over thirty commissioned works of art for public art collections nationally and is a retired Professor of Art at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) where he also founded and directed the Public Art Incubator, beginning in 2011. His relationship with University Museums, Iowa State University has included five Art on Campus commissions such as May I Help You? (2021), Glean I, II, and III (2003-2005), Pediment, and Dikhotomia (1995), as well as sculptures acquired for the permanent collection, and additional fabrication and conservation of other sculptures in the Art on Campus Collection. Drift expands the understanding and knowledge of Tom Stancliffe’s impact on the ISU campus through an exploration of his artistic body of work. Included in this exhibition are 16 sculptures that span Stancliffe’s early career to many newly created works of art that return to important themes he first explored nearly 40 years ago.
Drift will examine how the materiality of sculpture and its form function in conveying the perception of memories and the artist’s experience of the world. The concept of displacement is prominent in Stancliffe’s work and the exhibition. Societal order is disrupted as climate changes, politics shift, and even the act of altering the Iowa landscape to produce crops, displaces the understood order within our landscape and society. Through these sculptural works of art, Drift conveys the acknowledgement of change as a constant in the world as we see and experience it.
“Whatever you remember is no longer, whether it’s a moment, or the person, or a place or the thing. What you experience is always changing.”- Tom Stancliffe
This exhibition is curated by University Museums at the Christian Petersen Art Museum in the Lyle and Nancy Campbell Art Gallery, with generous support from Rachel Flint and University Museums Membership.
