"Atlas" Sculpture Planted at the RCC
You may have spotted this tree-like sculpture rising out of the ground in the Rental Car Center circle over the last few weeks. The steel honeycomb-like structure by DeWitt Godfrey is massive, but deceptively light. Godfrey specializes in creating public art around the world, often working in permanent materials like steel, typically stacking and arranging them and letting them mimic natural circular processes like plant spores and honeycombs. His PDX sculpture “Atlas” is no different.
DeWitt’s been working on the sculpture since the end of 2020. He says it took longer than his team hoped to get started, since the airport’s “stringent seismic standards” led him to scrap his first vision and return to the drawing board.
“The piece is very large, [with] these packed loops or so underneath,” he said. “The works are also transparent. So, there's a lot of volume, but there's also a lot of space in there.” In fact, the metal sculpture appears to bubble out of the floor and hold the ceiling aloft. (Don’t worry, it doesn’t!) You may find yourself circling it a few times, wondering how something so solid could look so ephemeral.
DeWitt was intrigued by the thought of how people encounter his new work at PDX. Some, he thinks, may be caught by surprise. “And then there's also a second floor [with] another second viewing area, too, so you can kind of look down into the piece,” he said. “It’s a really dynamic space.”
