This beautiful sculpture is by Wilmington artist Paul Hill. The piece, made of carbon steel and found objects, is located on Front Street in Wilmington, North Carolina. Being both a lover of art and a dog person, I love the way Hill captures the shape and the attitude of a leashed dog.
But there’s more to the work than “just a dog.” Hill uses animal imagery to depict, as his bio states, “the unpredictable human emotions and frustrations, that are daily being thrust into the lives of every person.” We are all “straining to be” free from the constraints that leave us tethered to our current situations.
I also love the art-deco feel to the piece, an influence that Hill has acknowledged. I can see similarities between Lee Lawrie’s famous art-deco statue of Atlas at Rockefeller Center in New York and Hill’s leashed dog, as Atlas strains to support the weight of the world and the dog pulls against the constraints of the leash that holds it back. It’s a beautiful work of art that I find quite moving.
If you would like to see more of Paul Hill’s beautiful art, check out his website.
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