HOWLAND — In the same week that the area saw its first dusting of snow, a one-piece-clad swimmer will take up residence outside of Medici Museum of Art.

“Monumental Quan,” a large hyperrealistic sculpture by Carole A. Feuerman, will be installed on the front lawn of the museum and unveiled during an opening reception on Friday. Inside the museum, a retrospective covering the last 20 years of the artist’s work will be on display.

Museum director Katelyn Amendolara-Russo said she studied Feuerman, considered one of the founders of hyperrealism, in college and saw her work at the Venice Biennale in Italy when she still was teaching art in the Jackson-Milton School District. After becoming Medici director, she reached out to Feuerman and David Brown, her studio manager, about displaying one of her sculptures.

‘We were still undergoing construction (of the museum’s expansion),” Amendolara-Russo said. “We’ve gone from that conversation about have one sculpture on loan to deciding (last spring) on having a full exhibition. Normally it takes a year or two to put together an exhibition of this size, but we made it happen.”

While details haven’t been finalized, Medici’s board hopes to make “Monumental Quan” a permanent addition to the museum.

“To start a sculptures garden out front with ‘Monumental Quan’ has been in the discussion,” Amendolara-Russo said, and they hope to finalize plans while Feuerman is in town for the reception.

In a telephone interview from her home in New York, Feuerman talked about the inspiration for “Monumental Quan,” which depicts a swimmer balanced on a large metallic orb. In some versions of the sculpture, the orb is reflective. For the one in Howland, the base is more of a purple / fuchsia color.

“All of my pieces come about by my wanting to tell a story,” she said. “The stories I tell usually are about something that happened in my life, and I utilize swimmers to tell the story. With ‘Monumental Quan,’ it wasn’t necessarily a story in my life, but a story that affected me. I wanted to talk about strong women and women who protect the world, so I looked up goddesses, and there is a goddess Quan Yin. ‘Monumental Quan’ was named after the Chinese goddess of compassion.

“Interestingly enough, quan also means coin, power and money, so the piece had a lot of meanings. It also has to do with balance, mental steadiness and stability, calm behavior and judgment, all that I strive for. So the figure represents compassion and the goddess and a woman who is poised and steady, and the sphere represents the world. She’s balanced on top of the world as if she’s looking down to protect with compassion and hearing the cries of the people. This particular sculpture has a ton of meaning.”

But that is true of all her work. Feuerman said some American critics and curators see what she does more as a craft than an art form. But with a resume that includes major exhibitions worldwide and multiple international awards, that’s a minority opinion.

“They all have meanings,” Feuerman said. “I don’t just pick a pretty girl and do a sculpture of her. They all start with a concept and a meaning. This was something I really wanted to say. I worry about the world and all of the stuff that is going on, so this has continued to have added meaning. Sometimes I really think if women were ruling the world we wouldn’t have as many wars because they wouldn’t want to send children off to war. It has a lot of meaning to me and I hope the people who see it, they are touched.”

For Feuerman’s first Ohio exhibition, Brown said he and Amendolara-Russo assembled a show that includes, “A breadth of artworks that span from the early 2000s to present day, including tabletop, lifesize and monumental works and also including some drip bronze pieces that pair nicely with the hyperreal painted pieces.

“The two bodies of work were paired together for this exhibition to highlight the different mediums. When they’re paired together, the hyperreal pieces appear softer in comparison and it’s kind of a nice back and forth that goes between this really heavy metal and this really lush, soft flesh.”

Feuerman started making the drip bronze pieces at a time when two severe hand injuries kept her from doing the hyperreal sculptures. First she had to find a foundry willing to try the dangerous technique of pouring bronze at 2,000 degrees. The different layers of color on those pieces happened by chance. Feuerman had the foundry melt different metals when they ran out of bronze.

“We used four different types of metal,” she said. “He poured one and I poured the next. I meditated on the four goddesses — earth, wind, air and fire. When I meditated on them, each one kind of came out looking like the meditation. One looked like air with a lot of lacy holes in it. One looked like earth with very earthy colors. It was very interesting they came out looking like what I was meditating on.”

A large male head using the pouring technique is part of the exhibition. Amendolara-Russo said they considered displaying one of the monumental size, full-body poured-metal sculptures, but shipping a piece that big and heavy was cost prohibitive.

For a series of five metal torsos with different levels of deterioration, each piece weighed up to 150 pounds and required special mounts to hang them on the walls, Amendolara-Russo said.

“I think it will be wonderful for patrons to come in here and experience a different kind of exhibit,” Amendolara-Russo said. “But it’s very relatable because it’s hyperrealistic.”

If you go …

WHAT: “Carole A. Feuerman: The Importance of Being Human”

WHEN: Friday through Feb. 1, 2023, with opening reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday. Hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.

WHERE: Medici Museum of Art, 9350 E. Market St., Howland

HOW MUCH: Admission is free. For more information, go to medicimuseum.art or call 330-856-2120.