Although some Louisville residents may not know him by name, everyone in Kentucky has likely seen the work of artist Dave Caudill. His sculptures are on display at Yew Dell Botanical Gardens in Crestwood, Fayette County Detention Center in Lexington, and Eastern Kentucky University’s School of Music in Richmond.
For the savant who completed two public artworks in the state last year, Kentucky is his canvas and the world is a gallery.
“As a matter of philosophy, I believe that art enhances creativity in the culture, whether someone is making it or looking at it,” says Dave Caudill. “A lot of people don’t go to galleries and museums. But if you put a piece in the public, it affects them. It changes them.”
His sculpture “Fanfare” was unveiled at EKU’s School of Music in fall 2024.
Caudill designed “Fanfare” as a destination piece to lure visitors toward the beautiful music of students and faculty. Shaped like an exclamation mark, the sculpture boasts stainless steel sides laser cut with the names of music pioneers, university programs and images of instruments.
“Many times with public work, it needs to have a cultural and physical context that makes it more significant to that particular place,” Caudill says.
In 2024, Caudill became the first artist commissioned by Lexington’s Percent for Art Program, supporting new works of art that are accessible to the public for free. The result was “The Birth of Hope”, a 30-foot-tall sculpture installed at the entrance to the Lexington Detention Center.
“It’s a place that’s so serious that only something that was equally serious was going to work,” Caudill says. “Hope was the single most important factor I could relate to that would be important to everyone involved with the community at the detention center, whether they’re inmates or families or staff.”
“The Birth of Hope” is a gesture of upraised arms and hands, from which emerges a nest that erupts into an abstract form. At the base of the sculpture are planted sunflowers, which blossom into a riot of yellows and browns during summer.
“When we look up and see sculpture against a blue sky, it literally is blue sky thinking. It opens you up to a subtle push toward the same kind of mind frame that kids have,” Caudill says. “Everything is a marvel and stimulates curiosity. That was important to ‘The Birth of Hope’.”
The dedication ceremony took place May 7, 2025, emceed by Mayor Linda Gorton. Chief of Corrections Col. Scott Colvin told Caudill when the pair first met that the two characteristics required to work at the detention center are courage and empathy.
“He said the day of the dedication that it was so important that the staff of that facility be able to encourage the people who are incarcerated,” Caudill says. “To give them as much encouragement as possible toward a future when they got out.”
Currently, 18 of Caudill’s stainless steel garden sculptures are on exhibit at Yew Dell Gardens. Compound curves in his sculptures create dynamic movement as the viewer walks around his work. Caudill describes his Yew Dell Gardens collection as rhythmic, like a kind of visual music.
“The surface of stainless is highly reflective. The way it responds to different kinds of light is really great,” Caudill says. “Under moonlight or streetlight, it can be very subtle and sublime. Under a full blazing sun, it’s just amazing.”
Repeat visitors are encouraged to view his garden sculptures on different days, at different times and in various weather for a complete experience.
“When you put that reflective work in a garden, it picks up all the colors in the surroundings, whether it’s the sky or the grain of grass or flowers,” Caudill says. “Art in a landscape serves to me as a metaphor of humanity and harmony with nature.”
Entwining art with nature is nothing new to Caudill. The artist first gained international recognition for “Angel of Harmony”. The piece was created as an artificial reef, located on a seabed near Nassau, Bahamas.
“When divers and snorkelers and swimmers saw it, it instantly said that it belongs there,” Caudill says. “Because coral is growing all over it and the fish are surrounding it.”
2025 marks the 30th anniversary of the undersea sculpture. The 74-year-old reminisced on his decades-spanning career.
“I always ascribe it to luck because I don’t know that I’m any more talented than anybody else,” Caudill says. “The Angel of Harmony” was the first piece that I did that I thought had real significance to anybody in the world.”
The breakthrough piece allowed him to pursue his passion as a full-time career.
“I became much more serious about the kinds of things that I wanted to do, and it gave me more ambition,” Caudill says.
He gained further global attention for “The Bolivian Odyssey”, a stone labyrinth based on the design of a human fingerprint. The work, created as a walking meditation in Bolivia, was featured in CODAworx’s 2024 book “The Economic Power of Public Art”.
Caudill first pitched the idea for his labyrinth to Louisville funders but was unable to attract interest. On a bus ride to a sculptors’ conference in Pittsburgh, Caudill struck up a conversation with Bolivian American artist María Teresa Camacho-Hull. She asked if Caudill would fly out to Bolivia and build the project there.
“I jumped at the opportunity,” Caudill says. “It was a chance to realize the implementation of a concept that I’d been working on for a long time.”
Caudill and three staffers at the Ars.Natura.Uta Arts and Culture Center built the colossal piece, measuring half the size of a football field. Camacho-Hull chose a giant native eucalyptus root to serve as the labyrinth’s centerpiece.
“This root seems to be coming up out of the earth and reaching for the heavens, and it sits in a small reflecting pool,” Caudill says. “To her, it served as a reminder of humanity being connected to the earth, so it was a great addition to the concept.”
Caudill is still waiting on a funder to commission his idea for an urban companion piece to “The Bolivian Odyssey” with colorful terrazzo elements. The design for the proposed installation is available on Caudill’s website.
“So far, I haven’t been able to sell it, but there’s always hope,” Caudill says.
Several of his bronze sculptures are on exhibit and for sale at the Moremen Gallery. Whether on a coffee table or mantle, his smaller sculptures intended for private collections inspire art collectors.
“It gives the person who owns the sculpture a chance to play,” Caudill says. “Art is just a serious form of play, if you can imagine the irony in that.”
More of his public work can be seen at Louisiana’s Rip Van Winkle Gardens, East Tennessee’s Horizon Center Park, the University of Kentucky’s Singletary Center for the Arts and the University of Louisville School of Music.
“Even if you’re not attracted to abstract work,” says Caudill, “if you see it often enough, you’ll enjoy it more.”
Dave Caudill Art is available for commissions. You can contact him by email at dave@caudillart.com or by phone at 502-457-4769. For more information, visit him online at davecaudillart.squarespace.com.
