As part of the ARTifacts: Created at Home exhibition at Dublin Arts Council, Matthew Mohr, the Dublin, Ohio-based artist best known for As We Are, the 14-foot LED head sculpture in the Columbus Convention Center, will be creating something much smaller. A series of six, solar-powered, kinetic sculptures called Lightning Sprites will activate the Dublin Arts Council gallery sun porch. The installation is intended to acknowledge hardships, celebrate creativity and inspire the community for a new day. 

The Lightning Sprites represent conjured spirits from a very real weather phenomenon, large-scale electrical discharges that can occur above thunderstorms, resulting in varied flickering visual shapes in the night sky. Mohr addresses the human need to anthropomorphize "nearly everything” by viewing the six-inch sculptures as pre-sentient beings. The artist brings ordinary containers, jars and tubes, the objects we interact with daily without thought, to life, beckoning us to reconsider their roles and functions and how we move with them. Each sprite will be given character attributes and a backstory that ties its mission to a component of the collective experience and disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The Lightning Sprites will be hidden in wooded areas around Dublin in mid-summer and a quest will be launched for teams to unlock clues, find and keep the sculptures. 

To schedule an appointment to visit the Dublin Arts Council gallery visit: https://visitdublinartscouncil.as.me