Desert Bloom by Nicole Davy
Oh Devil! by Zach Valent
A Gathering Place by Shela Yu
Desert Bloom by Nicole Davy
Oh Devil! by Zach Valent
A Gathering Place by Shela Yu
Multiple Artists
Temporary Public Art
The Temporary Public Art program provides opportunities for local artists to create site-specific, temporary public art installations.
Artists
Nicole Davy
Desert Bloom
The Desert Bloom design is a narrative of the influence of being born and raised in the Arizona desert. It is a visual ode to the delicate yet resilient beauty that thrives in one of the harshest environments. This piece represents her appreciation of our desert’s natural and diverse beauty.
As a child, Davy was raised beside one of Arizona’s many large flower farm fields. As she grew older, she spent much time outdoors all over the state, hiking, backpacking, and exploring. Davy has witnessed beautiful flora in some of the most extreme environments on the planet, which is our beautiful and diverse desert state. Desert Bloom is her expression of this beauty.
Through the choice of materials and colors, Desert Bloom aims to create a sense of harmony between nature and art through sculptural design elements in a modern-looking format that is sleek and ornamental but vibrant and modern. Davy used this platform to design a nonspecific flower that represents the beauty of the desert flowers with colors inspired by the colors reminiscent of the desert and those displayed through her journeys in the desert.
Nicole Davy has been creating art that focuses on exploring biology and its relationship with emotion. Davy’s works utilize design influenced by drawing, painting, and tattooing. Her experience in 2D work propelled her into sculpture. Using mold making, metal casting, and metal fabrication, she develops sculptures that help her to continue her artistic career.
Installation: April 10, 2024, through Spring 2025
Location: Northeast corner of Scottsdale Road and Oak Street
Zach Valent
Oh Devil!
Oh Devil! is an energetic and animated sculpture of a dust devil. Growing up in the Midwest, Valent is no stranger to the magnificent awe of tornadoes. When he first moved to the Phoenix Valley in 2014, he was completely fascinated by these much smaller and less destructive cyclones. While they can still get quite large and cause some damage, he often sees these devils heckling the residents by zipping across roads and through neighborhoods, stirring up dust, and knocking over garbage cans.
Zach Valent is an interdisciplinary artist who lives in Mesa, Arizona, and works valley wide. His artwork ranges in size from small handheld objects to large-scale public artworks. Valent received a master of fine art in studio arts from Arizona State University (ASU) in 2017 and a bachelor of fine art in sculpture from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Valant’s work has been admired, exhibited, and collected internationally. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Nathan Cummings Travel Fellowship, The Rickert Ziebold Trust Award, and a Windgate Charitable Foundation for the Arts Award. In 2019, Valent cofounded Lot 14, a collective art studio in Tempe, Arizona. Valent works as a full-time artist and focuses on large-scale sculpture and public art. He is also a faculty associate at Phoenix College and ASU, where he teaches design and sculpture courses.
Installation: April 10, 2024, through Spring 2025
Location: Northeast corner of Scottsdale Road and Roosevelt Street
Shela Yu
A Gathering Place
A Gathering Place is a celebration of the mutual necessity for water between people, plants, and animals. As Yu developed this concept, she was inspired by how the continued modern development of the Hohokam canal systems not only supports human life in the desert but inevitably provides safe havens for migrating birds, resources for wild plants to grow, and shelter for amphibians and insects alike. Whether we intended to or not, the results of these canal systems have created a gathering place for all life to thrive.
Shela Yu, aka ShellShaker, is a Chinese American multi-disciplinary artist from Mesa, Arizona. Her love of the creative process spans a lifetime of dance, music, art, and healing. The 2020 pandemic, though tumultuous, became an opportunity for Yu to pursue a career in art after a decade of being a massage therapist. The last three years have been a transformative time where she has dedicated much of her work to painting murals across Phoenix. Her current objective is to nurture her inner visions. She is gathering herself to pave a clear path to inner peace. Art has been a friend in an often-lonely life in many ways. So, as a thank you to art, she is dedicating her life to the full spectrum of creative expression.
Installation: March 14, 2024, through Spring 2026